


no fires to light, no holly to tie

by Ellerigby13



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, Angst, Anxiety, Christmas, F/M, Fluff, M/M, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-21
Updated: 2019-05-07
Packaged: 2019-09-24 01:46:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 24,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17091776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ellerigby13/pseuds/Ellerigby13
Summary: Darcy Lewis hasn't spent a Christmas at her small hometown in years.  She hasn't seen her once-upon-a-time-best-friend-and-potential-love-of-her-life Steve Rogers in years either.Second chances, heartaches, and true love make her start to wonder if her life is an actual Hallmark movie.  All that's missing is the musical number in the end.





	1. first traces

**Author's Note:**

> Song lyrics in this chapter from "Christmas Lights" by Coldplay.

Five Days Till Christmas

_ Those Christmas lights light up the street down where the sea and city meet.  May all your troubles soon be gone, oh Christmas lights keep shining on _ .

Darcy lay her planner flat on the tray table, scanning the remainder of the week in front of her with a purple roller pen in one hand and a gin and tonic in the other.  When the guy on her left lolled his head toward her, snoring louder than it should have been humanly possible to snore, she tried to tuck both elbows in at her sides and shift her weight in the opposite direction.  Darcy let her pen linger over today’s date, leaving a thin violet trail next to her loose schedule.

Her flight had left roughly on time, and would get into Austin at eight twenty-four, so Mom would probably roll through to pick her up by eight forty-five.  The way Mom drove, it would likely take about an hour, hour and fifteen to get to Point Lusa, so they’d get home no later than ten, provided the car was gassed up and Mom didn’t need to stop for anything.  She’d chat with Dad and Charlie over a leftover plate of whatever Dad had roasted for dinner, then spend hopefully no more than ten minutes making sure Jane wasn’t in the lab past her ascribed bedtime.

That should get Darcy in bed by twelve thirty at the very latest.  If she got up at nine the next morning, there’d be enough time to get in a long bath before the brunch Mom loved to set up so much during the holidays, when the whole family was home.

Darcy closed her eyes, then fumbled with the button on her seat to recline.  Maybe, if she tried, she could get in an extra hour of sleep during the flight.

Of course, with that mentality, nobody ever got in that extra time to sleep.

Time was a weird thing.  She hadn’t been home to Point Lusa in five years, and yet she knew her family’s routine hadn’t changed in five years either.  She knew that sitting with Dad and Charlie at the dinner table would be part nostalgia and part interrogation, that Dad would clock out a little early so Charlie could update her on how Dad’s blood pressure was doing, how Mom’s baby beanie business was going, and how things were at the autoshop.  She could ask about his sweet, sweet girlfriend Jessie, who she knew he was planning on proposing to soon, and he’d smile with that little twinkle in his eyes and eventually tell her that there was someone great out there for her, too.

Passenger Left snorted in his sleep and elbowed Darcy in the boob.

God, being thirty and single in California and  _ still _ not being able to afford a non-economy, non-middle seat ticket fucking sucked.

The gin and tonic helped, though.  Helped the flight suck a little less, but it definitely didn’t help the way that Darcy’s life was quickly devolving into a big, terrible cliche-on-legs.

Watching Tasty videos and taking Buzzfeed quizzes as she scrolled through Facebook, that helped, too.  Jane shot her a few messages about house- and dog-sitting at Darcy’s, complete with a few pictures of herself and her massive muscly Swede boyfriend Thor snuggled up on the couch together with a couple of mugs of hot chocolate and Shady nestled between them.  Darcy couldn’t help but grin, and texted back how unbearably cute they were, and asked when she could plan on sending out the wedding invitations.

Against her better judgment, Darcy returned to the home screen on Facebook to type out her first status update in months:  _ T-minus two hours till touchdown in Austin, t-minus three hours till arrival at Point Lusa with the Mothership <3 Happy Everything! _

Almost a nanosecond after sending her status out into the world, Darcy jolted when the notification sound rang in her earbuds, and again another nanosecond later.

_ Steve Rogers liked your post. _

_ Steve Rogers commented on your post. _

Darcy’s heart fluttered uncomfortably in her chest.  Her finger hovered over the second impossibly fast bubble before tapping down.

The comment itself was innocuous enough; Steve Rogers had said that it was great she was coming home, and that they should grab a coffee in town if she had time.  Which was  _ exactly _ the way that Steve Rogers would have responded.

Growing up, Steve Rogers had been her literal boy next door.  Shrimpy and scrappy since probably the day he was born, Steve made a considerable impression the day he moved into the ranch house next to Darcy’s.  It was the summer before first grade, and Darcy was enamored with the idea of a new neighbor, practically pressed up to the window watching the big white moving truck kick up dust as it drove up the dirt lane.  When it finally stopped in front of the Markoviches’ old house, a slim, stern looking woman with rusty orange hair hopped out of the driver’s seat and half-ran to the passenger’s side to open the door.

A little boy came tumbling out and landed chest first off the step and into the gravel, and Darcy cocked her head to the side as she watched him clamber to his feet, brushing off his front.  It was odd, she thought, not only that this tiny boy, with his angry eyes and messy blond hair, was so clumsy, but that he was wearing a dress shirt, slacks, and suspenders - odd that he looked so put together, so  _ grown up _ even though he was so tiny he almost could have been younger than her.  And odd that, even though he’d taken what looked like a painful spill, he hadn’t cried at all.

Once he got his feet under him, he followed the redheaded woman - his mother, Darcy figured - into the house and then back out to start retrieving boxes.

“Put your shoes on, Darcy,” her own mother had called from the kitchen.  “It looks like Mrs. Rogers and her son will need some help.”

Dad and Charlie had been at the latter’s baseball practice that morning, so Darcy and her mother bounded out their front door with the spare dolly the Lewises kept in the garage to help the Rogers family load their things into the house.  Darcy specifically remembered lacing up her Rugrats shoes, because the previous spring she’d had to learn to tie them herself after one of the boys at kindergarten had made fun of her for not being able to.

When they finally made it outside, Mrs. Rogers and her boy had propped open their front door with a box and had climbed into the back of one of the trucks to start sorting through the things they’d packed up.

“Hey, there.”  Without asking, Darcy’s mother pushed herself up into the trailer and turned to pull Darcy up, too.  She dragged the dolly up after them. “Sarah Rogers, right? And this must be your Steven.” She smiled big at the little boy, wiggling her fingers to wave at him.  “I’m Alicia Lewis, and this is my daughter Darcy. Our boys are at the baseball diamond this morning, but we’ve got our dolly, and we’d be happy to help y’all settle in.”

The smile on Sarah’s lips seemed to be warm, but the expression in her eyes was sharp, careful, like a cat.  She scanned Darcy and her mother quickly, and propped her hands on her hips.

“Pleased to meet ya both,” she said quickly, and that funny way she spoke, Mom would explain to Darcy later, was because she was from Ireland.  “Alicia, why don’t you and I get hold of that dolly, and we’ll have the little chis’lers take care’a the smaller boxes?”

Mom nodded firmly, and softly instructed Darcy to only pick up the boxes she was  _ sure _ she could carry easy.  In an even softer tone, she instructed her to help little Steven with a box if it looked like he was having a hard time.

Little Stevie pulled an inhaler out of his pocket, squeezed, and sucked deeply, his small chest pushing against the straps that laced down his front.  Darcy sucked in a deep breath of her own and paced over to him, a little fascinated by the creaking of the truck under each of her steps.

Steve had been a sweet, polite, and mostly quiet little boy, with a much softer and slower voice than his mother had used, and without the funny way of talking.  After gently asking her to call him Steve, not Steven, he looked her up and down, at the paint-stained blue overalls she wore almost as often as her pajamas, and puckered his lips curiously.

“You’re dressed funny,” he said, with no anger or teasing, like the kids at school sometimes had when they talked to her, but like he really didn’t understand why she’d wear overalls.  For a second, Darcy didn’t know what to say.

“So are you.”  She reached out to touch one of the thick brown straps that ran from his shoulders to his pants, and then, when her mother called out her name again, she looked to one of the nearest cardboard boxes.  “You wanna carry a box with me?”

So they’d taken turns picking a box to carry together, and then together they’d scoot the box to the edge of the trailer, and one of them would hop out so the other could pass it over, and then they’d carefully balance it between them as they brought it into Steve’s new house.  Dad and Charlie arrived home just as Mom and Mrs. Rogers loaded the last of the Rogerses’ things into the house next door.

Teamwork was a big part of Steve and Darcy’s friendship growing up.  Darcy found out that, in spite of Steve’s tiny stature and gentle demeanor, he’d get an awful fire in his eye any time he heard Travis Carey say something rude about another kid.  Steve found out that, in spite of Darcy playing the sweetheart for her parents and their teachers, she’d pack a mean punch when Travis Carey got smart with her.

They once were sent home with matching bruised knuckles and detention slips, for picking a fight with one of the new kids over the way he’d pulled Heather Pierce’s pigtail.

But the teamwork went beyond school; since Steve didn’t have any family besides his mom, the Rogers clan made a habit of joining the Lewises, immediate and extended, for basically every celebratable holiday.  When Darcy’s aunt Rebecca had too many glasses of wine and started listing all the unsavory things her niece had been picking up or had been raised with, Steve would tilt back his chair so neither his ma nor Aunt Rebecca could see, and start making faces with every irritating word that passed her lips.

“I  _ mean _ , Darcy, sweet girls like yourself don’t need to be taking up politics.  It’s just  _ unbecoming _ , honey.”  Here she’d sip more wine and Steve would pick up his own drink, sticking out his pinky, and roll his eyes and pucker his lips.  And Darcy would let herself laugh for a minute, and then she’d argue back, because she didn’t know any other way to be.

“Unbecoming because I’m using my talents and wit for something that makes me feel happy and independent instead of finding a husband?”  She’d snort into her mashed potatoes and gravy and catch Steve’s gaze to give an eye-roll of her own. “C’mon, Aunt Bec, it’s 2003. Things are changing.”

“Mm,” Aunt Rebecca would say, and shake her head into her wine glass, her eyes on Darcy’s father.  “Ought to be careful with this one, David. Be a shame to have a spinster on your hands.”

“Oh, don’t write me off for an MRS so soon, Aunt Bec,” Darcy would say quickly, before her dad had a chance to respond, “I’ve got great boobs, too, right?”

About this time, Steve would choke on whatever was in his mouth, and Charlie could usually be counted on to pound him on the back until the coughing subsided without bruising him.  Aunt Bec would get all harsh and chide Darcy for shocking the poor boy with such vulgarities, but there would still be a glimmer of mirth under the tears in Steve’s eyes as he gulped down the nearest water source.

_ God _ , Darcy thought,  _ he really  _ was  _ my best friend _ .  And yet, it was like she was remembering these memories only as memories - as though she’d forgotten they ever actually happened, or as though she’d only ever heard them told to her by a friend.

But she knew they were real.  So real that’s why her heart almost ached when she saw his activity on her post, even though she hadn’t seen him in - God, how many years?  Had it really been a full eight years since she’d seen Steve Rogers in person?

Without anger or blame, she remembered Bucky Barnes, the third leg to all her and Steve’s little operations.  The boy who’d come from Brooklyn to pull on girls’ pigtails, the boy who’d taken Steve’s skinny fist right to his jaw and looked down at the little pipsqueak of a kid and then apologized to Heather Pierce with the brightest smile on his face.

Bucky had taken to Steve and Darcy like a fish to water.  Not like all the other boys, who turned their noses up at a boy hanging out with a girl and kicked dirt in Steve’s face when he stuck up for Darcy.  Not like all the other boys, who hit hard because they knew Steve couldn’t.

Bucky had come down from Brooklyn in the third grade with his mom and his sister (ironically, whose name was also Rebecca), and had caused a riot among most of the girls in the class.  Mostly because he’d charmed his way into Mrs. Jacobson’s good graces, and because he wore gel in his hair in a slick curve that curled over the left side of his head. The boys didn’t care too much for Bucky, because they figured he talked too much, but that made him a great match for Darcy and Steve.

In fact, he’d visited both Darcy’s and Steve’s houses about interchangeably growing up, going to help Sarah with her tomatoes and trying impossibly to impress Charlie, who was two years older, which automatically made him cool.

But the trio’s favorite pastime was going to the creek behind Darcy’s parents’ property to toss rocks at the few silvery fish they spotted swimming past, to see who could spit farthest over the length of the creek, and, like most little kids, to see what kind of trouble they could cause together.

“If you could punch someone out, from each class in our grade, who would you pick?” Bucky liked asking, when they had swiped his ma’s picnic blanket and took burgers and milkshakes from the local diner out back to the small patch of meadow in the forest near the creek.

“Tim Rancey,” Steve would answer quickly, plucking the onion out of his burger before he took a bite; why he didn’t just ask the diners not to include it, Darcy had no idea.  The same way she had no idea where he put the burger and milkshake, at ninety pounds soaking wet. “From our class. Scott Stephenson, from the 8B class. And...Elizabeth O’Reilly, from 8C.”

“You wouldn’t punch out Elizabeth O’Reilly,” Bucky challenged with a disbelieving wrinkle of his nose.  But Steve would shake his head, chewing loudly because he had too much food in his mouth and his mother wasn’t around to tell him not to.

“Mm-mm.”  Steve gulped, and Darcy snorted, leaning back onto her elbows and rolling her eyes.  “I would, though. She plays the, ‘Irish used to be slaves, too’ card like a fiddle. When Elaina did her research presentation on Martin Luther King Jr., I caught O’Reilly making her cry because, and I quote, ‘picking MLK was such an  _ obvious _ choice.’”

“Wow.”  Darcy raised her eyebrows and puckered her lips in disgust.  “Kinda makes me rethink my choices.”

“Who were you gonna pick, Darcy?”

“Michael Morgan, because he’s annoying.  Jessica Sanchez, because she, like... _ watches _ me sometimes in science.  And...yeah, I’ll go ahead and second Elizabeth O’Reilly for being a guilt tripping racist idiot.”  She paused to suck Neapolitan deliciousness through the wide plastic straw of her milkshake, then nodded up at him.  “What about you, Buck?”

“I’m gonna have to agree with  _ you  _ on Michael Morgan, and Stevie, about Scott Stephenson.  And while I don’t think I’m capable of socking out a dame, I think Jimmy Andrews put a Confederate patch on his backpack, so…”  He pretended to crack his knuckles threateningly, and of the three of them, Darcy knew Bucky was the only one who could or would successfully punch someone out, and also that he was the least likely of the three of them to want to do so.  Where Steve was passionate and Darcy outspoken, Bucky kept them in check. Level. Brought in the rationale along with the charm. And even when he asked these ridiculous questions that had no real right answer, he thought out every response and every reason behind it.  He always had a plan.

No wonder Steve had followed him into war the way he had.

The plane began to tremble and jerk as it started its descent, and Darcy closed her eyes again, turning up the volume on her current song.  When she opened her eyes again, pushing her thumb to the home button, Steve’s comment popped back up like it was waiting for her to respond.

_ Great that you’re coming home!  Let me know if you have time to grab a coffee while you’re in town :) _

Darcy took a deep inhale, wrote out her reply, and sent it without a second glance, because she knew she wouldn’t if she spent any more time thinking about it.

_ Steve, that’d be great.  Will be in town all week.  You’ll know where to find me :) _

* * *

 

The plane touched down promptly at eight fifteen, and Darcy escaped her seat at eight twenty to retrieve the carry-on she’d stowed in an overhead apartment two rows back.  She bade adieu to the pilot and attendants (and Snoring Passenger Boob-Nudge) at eight thirty and got to baggage claim to find her gift-packed suitcases at eight thirty-six.  Mom got to the arrivals gate at eight forty-two.

“Hey, sweetheart,” she said, pulling Darcy in to squeeze her tight.  Darcy took in the sweet smell of her mother’s tangy citrus shampoo, and smiled into her gray-tinged brown curls.  When they finally pulled away from each other, Alicia took a moment to give her daughter a once-over. “You look good.  Are you hungry? Your dad made a pot roast and brussels sprouts.”

Darcy grinned.  “Hopefully it’s all still warm by the time we get there.”

“I don’t drive that slow.  I do need to grab gas on our way, though, so you’ll just have to enjoy the wait.”

Which she did - partly for the easygoing small talk with Mom that was always heartfelt and comforting, and partly for the gorgeous views that home had to offer.  Austin and its surrounding towns tended to go all out with the Christmas decorations, but no decorations, not even the houses with the music and the flashing strings of bulbs of every color, could compare with the rows of lights that led up a dark dirt road to two ranch houses on the eastern end of Point Lusa.  As Mom pulled the car into the driveway, lights in both houses flickered on.

“What the hell, California girl’s home at last!” was the last thing she heard before being crushed to Charlie’s chest, feeling like her ribs were about to burst.

“Charlie, you’re gonna kill me,” she managed to choke out, so he loosened his grasp and let Darcy wrap her arms around him, laying her head on his shoulder.  “Great to see you, bud. How’s everything?”

“Good.”  When he let go of her, there was something in his eyes that told her good didn’t necessarily  _ mean _ good, something quiet and subdued and morose because he didn’t want to ruin her homecoming.  Darcy reached down to squeeze his hand, keeping the smile glued to her lips. “Good. Dad saved you some dinner - come eat.  We can talk.”

As she followed her brother inside, and as they settled her luggage at the doorway next to the laundry room, she noticed the thin silvery hairs peeking out in tiny patches all over his head, and the way that he walked a little slower, a little more creaky than he used to.  When he flashed a wink at her over his shoulder, making their way into the kitchen, she didn’t miss the crow’s feet crinkling the edges of his eyes.

Nor the more pronounced, prominent crow’s feet crinkling the corners of her father’s eyes, when he grinned bright as day at her and pulled her into his arms before she had both feet in the kitchen.

“Darcy Day Lewis, it’s been too long since you darkened this doorstep,” he chuckled, and pressed a very mustached kiss to her cheek before reaching into the plates cupboard to fix her up a dish.  “You know, your mom and Charlie were ready to eat all this, leave you for dead. But you know who was looking out for you the whole time?” David Lewis aimed a thumb at his own chest and, with eyebrows raised for dramatic effect, mouthed,  _ Me _ .

“What would I do without you, Daddy?”  She leaned up to return the kiss to his cheek, then found her spot at the dinner table next to Charlie, allowing herself to look around at the remodels they’d done to the dining room.  “You guys did a lot of work in here, huh?”

“Mostly your brother and your old boyfriends.”  Dad set down the heaping slice of roast and brussels sprouts down in front of her, then got to tearing her off a piece of garlic bread from the remnants of a loaf in a foil bag on top of the oven.  “They’ve been asking about you, you know.”

“Oh, my God, Daddy.”  She raised her eyebrows, determinedly gazing down into her dinner as she cut the roast into small squares.  “Not at all my boyfriends. I’m sure Bucky’s on his sixth girl this week, if he’s anything like I remember.”

“You’d be surprised,” Charlie cut in, and helped himself to the last leftovers of the night’s dinner.  “But Steve asks about you, like...consistently. Not enough to be creepy, but often enough that...you know.”

Darcy couldn’t stop the way that her cheeks burned, but she could keep her eyes directed down into her food, and she could stuff her face with so much of it that she wouldn’t have to dignify him with acknowledgement.

“And when I was lurking on your Facebook earlier, I saw that little exchange with you two.  He  _ likes  _ you.”  Dad sat on the other side and rested his hand at the top of her chair.  “ _ Like _ -like.”

“Daddy, Steve and I are thirty.  People don’t  _ like- _ like each other when they’re thirty.  Besides, he had his chance and he blew it.”  She grumbled the last part into her garlic bread, softly enough that she was fairly certain neither of them heard.  And with his terrible hearing, Daddy didn’t, but Charlie began wearing an awful face that might have been called a smirk, but uglier.  However, Darcy had never seen an expression fade so fast as when she asked, “What about Jessie? How’s she doing?”

“Darcy,” Dad said quietly, and reached over to rest his hand on top of hers, but Charlie shook his head, the smirk turning into something exhausted, something lost, and suddenly her brother looked about twenty years older than he was.

“It’s alright, Dad.  We, uh, split about a week ago.  She’s moving to Washington.”

“ _ What?   _ Why?”  Darcy’s chest felt heavy for him, for the way that he sagged in his chair, fiddling with with the zipper of his jacket.

“She said she didn’t want to be stuck here.  That there was nothing left here for her but a future  _ I’d  _ put on her.”  Charlie shrugged.

“He proposed,” Mom added, and Darcy had nearly forgotten she was still in the room, leaning against the empty doorway beside the refrigerator with her arms crossed over her chest.  “Went to the trouble of asking her folks, took her on a vacation up to Colorado, and she left him there in the mountains on one knee.”

“Mom,” Charlie almost whispered, shaking his head.  He wasn’t crying, but Darcy wasn’t sure she’d ever seen him this broken, as though all light and life had left the eyes she remembered being so joyous, drained in one fell swoop.  Darcy gave his hand another squeeze, sliding her fingers gently between his. “It’s nobody’s fault, Darce. Really. Jessie and I want different things. Wasn’t meant to be.”

“After six years together, you’d think she’d have tried a little harder or figured it out sooner.”  Mom pushed off from her place in the doorway to complete their small circle at the dinner table.

“Mom.”  He looked up at her, his brows furrowed in the middle, but not with anger or annoyance.  He was  _ upset _ , not that Jessie had broken up with him, but that his mother was holding a grudge against her over it.  “Come on. She’s a good person.”

_ Well, _ thought Darcy sadly, as both of her parents retired for the night, but not before kissing her head and telling her how glad they were she was home,  _ not exactly what I was expecting _ .  Charlie mustered up a smile and squeezed her hand back, then stood up to put their plates in the dishwasher.

“I’m going to head back to my place in town.  If Mom and Dad drive you too crazy while you’re here, you’re always welcome to crash with me.”  He leaned down to kiss her forehead, but she’d stood and wrapped her arms around his waist before he could quite land it.

“Hope you know I love you, huh?”

“I know.  I love you, too, kid.  Get some sleep, okay?”

“Okay.”

When she finally trudged into a bed she hadn’t slept in for five whole years, in a room she barely remembered half-plastered with Jonas Brothers posters and dreamboard collages she’d glued together, and cast her bra and jeans onto the floor at the foot of the bed, Darcy didn’t have much time to think on how crazy it was that her brother’s girlfriend could just...leave the way she had.  Could just disappear one day, and he wouldn’t see her until she’d come to visit her folks, or maybe he’d never see her again, if they left town, too. And even then, it would be different, like the whole world had shifted between them, and now they were entirely different people with entirely different lives than the last six years.

She didn’t have much time to think on how, if she just replaced six years with twelve in that last thought, it would be exactly like the day that Steve left her, kicking up dust and not looking back.


	2. ghosts of christmas past

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song lyrics in this chapter from "My Slumbering Heart" by Rilo Kiley.

Four Days Till Christmas

 

_ In my dreams, I see myself hitting a baseball in a green field somewhere near a freeway, I’m all tan and smiling and running from third base, And it’s hot and the kids keep on playing the driving game, And they’re singing the same goddamn refrain, and the sky is a bluish gray _

As the foggy Texas sun crept through the blinds into Darcy’s old room, the dull memory of waking up alone in her own bed rose back to her mind the morning after the Fourth of July in 2006.  As she pushed up to her elbows, she remembered being twelve years younger, probably a couple pounds lighter, and not knowing what to do with her wardrobe or, on this morning at least, the hole in her chest left by the skinny boy who must have snuck out sometime during the night and back to his own house just next door.

“Darcy?” her mom called abruptly, giving three short raps before opening the door, like moms do.  She poked her head into her daughter’s room, somehow looking both awake and alert at this ungodly hour, like some kind of immortal mom-demon.  “Sarah’s coming over in an hour for brunch, then she was thinking the three of us might take a walk through town. You wanna get cleaned up, babe?”

Darcy rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands, thoroughly displeased with herself at the streaks of eyeliner and mascara that trailed off there.  “Yeah. Yeah, I’ll be up in a minute. Thanks, Mom.”

Alicia had respectfully rolled all of Darcy’s luggage to the door, so Darcy rolled it the rest of the way into her room, digging through her smaller suitcase for her toiletries and some kind of suitable outfit for the day she was about to have, eating brunch and walking through town with her near lifelong friend, the mother of the boy who’d warmed and then broken her heart twelve years prior.

As it turned out, and Darcy shouldn’t have been surprised, Sarah Rogers was much the same woman as she had been driving her moving truck up to her new property all those days ago.  When Darcy had finally showered, changed, and finished the sparse hair and makeup routine she’d practiced basically since hitting puberty, Sarah Rogers sat at her dinner table in flannels, jeans, and a messy bun, almost more silver than auburn these days, her face lined with both worry and warmth.  She stood nearly immediately upon seeing her former neighbor, and wrapped her thin arms around Darcy tight.

“Darcy Lewis, it’s been far too many years since I’ve seen this lovely face,” she sang, and pressed a loving kiss to Darcy’s cheek.  “You ‘aven’t aged one day, sweetheart.”

“It’s great to see you, Sarah,” Darcy said, and meant it.  She’d almost forgotten how much love was squeezed into this small woman, and how much love poured out of her.  “You look great. How’s the garden shop doing?”

“Could always be better.”  Sarah shrugged and resumed her spot at the dinner table, gesturing for Darcy to have a seat beside her.  “But I can’t complain. It was harder when Steve was away, but now he’s been home the last few years he’s been puttin’ himself to use helpin’ out.  That boy’s been better at networking than I ever have.”

“They teach him that in the army?” Darcy chuckled, then passed one of the plates of French toast and berries her mother had handed her to Sarah, and took one for herself, quickly whispering her thanks to her mom.

“I don’t know what it was.  You’d’ve thought he’d learn it faster, all those years the two of ya spent with Bucky Barnes, the charmer that boy is, but when he got home after his last tour, it was like day an’ night.  Sped through orders, chatted up customers. Like he’d been doin’ it is whole life.”

“Second round of puberty hit that boy like a truck after he left for the army, though,” Mom chimed in, finally falling into place at her own seat, and began to saw at her French toast with her knife and fork.  “I’ve only seen ladies in the shop since Stevie started more hours. That boy’s too handsome for his own good, but just handsome enough to grab you more business, Sarah.”

“Handsome as he might be, he’s not bringing anybody ‘round who’s worth his time.  Or mine.”

Mom made a face not unlike a grimace, shrugging as she speared a piece of toast and then a chunk of strawberry on her fork.  “That Sharon girl was nice. I don’t think they should have gotten so hung up on the whole thing with his commander.”

“What thing with his commander?” Darcy asked, trying not to seem like she was too interested in Steve’s dating life.

“When he was overseas, he started goin’ out with his commanding officer,” Sarah explained, her irritation channeling itself clearly through the violence with which she stabbed each piece of food on her plate.  “Lovely woman, English, but we forgave her that. They dated for a year, got reassigned, tried the long distance thing, didn’t work out. When he came home, he started seeing this other lovely girl. Sharon, very responsible, smart, could take care of herself.  Found out about two months in she was the last girlfriend’s niece.”

“Second cousin,” Mom corrected gently, and she was smiling into her cup of coffee as Sarah went over the situation with Darcy.  “She was Peggy’s second cousin, and Sharon and Peggy barely communicated. I didn’t think it was that big a deal.”

“Oh, aye, but the way Steve figured, if he’d gone on with Peggy but a bit longer, Sharon’d be his niece today.  Couldn’t live with that idea, the mad boy, even though he’d been goin’ on with Sharon two months already.” Darcy fought off a smile of her own, recalling with fondness the way that Sarah slipped deeper into her Irish brogue the more passionately she spoke.  That brogue, every time she called out Steve’s full name for whatever trouble he was in.

“ _ Steven Grant Rogers, _ what in fresh ‘ell happened to your face?” she had cried once, when Steve and Darcy walked home early from sixth grade one warm, late April day (sans Bucky - he’d been put into a different class that year because, finally, the teachers had realized it was probably best not to have the three of them together).  Darcy was sniffling, trying to cover her face with a scarf that made her too hot, but her hand was wrapped tight around Steve’s as they walked, because she’d promised, knowing she couldn’t let herself  _ not _ promise, to go with Steve when he told his mother what had happened.

“I got in a fight, Ma,” Steve said as evenly as he could, as loudly as he could with the split in his lower lip, the blood trickling down his chin.  He kept a steady gaze on his mother, even through the puffy swelling that had settled into his badly blackened eye. He looked a mess, and Darcy knew he felt awfully messy, too.  “And I got suspended.”

“Got in a fight?” Sarah had repeated incredulously, her face filling with color, her arms folded over her chest.  Darcy had never seen her this angry before, and squeezed Steve’s hand again, bowing her head. “With who, might I ask?”

“Brad Davis,” Steve said softly, but when Darcy worked up the courage to look up at him again, he was gazing defiantly into his mother’s face, speaking with determination, honesty, heart.  “I got in a fight with Brad Davis, ‘cause he…”

“He grabbed me,” Darcy said at last, turning her own face up to meet Sarah’s.  “We were in P.E., and we’ve been working on square dancing, and Brad, um...he was my partner.  And when we were dancing, he…” She looked at Steve, trying to summon up the strength that he’d had, the gumption to finish telling his mother why Steve was black and blue and cut up all over.  “...he grabbed me. On my butt.”

Sarah’s frown deepened, and for a moment Darcy thought she might yell at  _ her _ now.  That Sarah would be angry with  _ Darcy _ for letting a boy touch her like that.  For letting Steve go to bat for her. For taking so long to fess up to her youthful, temptatious crimes.

“I wanted to hit him first.”  Darcy rushed out the words, feeling her hand slip away from Steve’s and clutch her other hand in front of her, putting a little space between herself and Sarah.  “I wanted to hit him first, but...I kinda froze. Steve was in my group, he saw what happened.”

“You hit him first?” Sarah asked Steve, looking to her son, but her voice had softened considerably.  Darcy felt some of the tension in her shoulders release, and she reached for his hand again.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“You hit him hard?”

Steve straightened up, squeezing Darcy’s hand back.  “Yes, ma’am.”

Sarah touched her son’s cheek with the tips of her fingers, tenderly examining the bruises splashed across his pale skin.  In a tone almost as sharp as before, she instructed him to get himself an ice pack from the freezer, and to lie on the couch, and then she told Darcy to get on home and tell her parents what had happened, too.  She said that she was going to call them later that afternoon as well.

And even though there was a vaguely threatening note to the way that Sarah had told her all this, Darcy trusted that it would all turn out okay.

Asking Steve what the hell had happened when they’d initially gotten home that day, that was the second angriest Darcy had ever seen Sarah get.

The  _ angriest  _ she’d ever seen Sarah was the following day, through the window to the principal’s office, her face nearly as red as her hair, as she stood with Principal Murphy, and Darcy’s parents, and Brad Davis’s parents, her mouth moving rapidly and no sound coming out while Darcy and Steve sat in the firm-cushioned chairs next to the school receptionist’s desk.  Brad Davis sat alone in one of the rows of chairs across from them, his hands splayed calm in his lap. Darcy didn’t dare look anywhere higher than his hands, because she knew it would make her angry all over again.

“You didn’t have to do it for me, you know.”  She looked into her lap, then peeled the last flecks of nail polish off her fingernails.  “I would’ve hit him.”

“I know.”  Steve hadn’t taken his eyes off Brad the whole time they sat there, his mouth in a thin line while he cracked his knuckles, his wrists, his neck in a manner that would have been threatening, if he hadn’t had a waistline Darcy could wrap both hands around.  “I was worried he’d hit you back.”

“I wouldn’t have let him.”

“Well, you were too slow on the uptake.”

She pinched him on the arm, both in teasing and mild annoyance.  “I’m serious, Steve. I don’t need a hero.”

He pinched her on the leg, and though she hadn’t known what that feeling was at the time, she could feel something swirling in her stomach when he leaned into her side.  “I know you don’t. But you did need a friend.”

“Are you seeing anyone, Darcy?” Sarah asked, shaking Darcy from the painful warmth of her memory.

“Seeing - ?  Oh, uh, no, not - not right now.  Kind of...in between partners right now.  Not in too much of a hurry to head back into the dating game, you know?”  She pushed a slice of her toast back and forth through a thick glob of syrup.

“That’s good.”  Sarah nodded, took a gulp of her coffee, and let the mug clang onto the table when she set it down.  “Could use a lot more career women like yourself round these parts. Half of ‘em knocked up and settled down before they’re old enough to sniff a cigarette.”

Darcy shrugged.  “That’s their choice, though.  It’s all they know, living around here, but it’s a choice.”

“True.  I suppose the root of it all is they don’t know they’ve  _ got  _ another choice.”

“Things are changing.  It’s a small town, but it’s 2018.  Might still be hope in this little ol’ place for the girls here to figure out their other choices.”

Sarah seemed pleased with this answer, and over the dregs of brunch they chatted over the garden shop and the companies Dad’s produce supplied.  Darcy volunteered her dishwashing services so she could be alone with her thoughts for a few minutes, so she could worry over whether Jane had gotten enough sleep the previous night, or any of the other scientists who were usually under her care.

She worried over the coffee she had promised Steve, and the fact that that promise was now especially solid because she’d be spending the entire day with his mother.  She worried over what she should wear to get coffee with him, what she should say, how she should feel. She worried that he still had feelings, because if he did, there was no way she’d know what to do about it.

She also worried that, over all the Steve drama that was sure to happen this week, she wouldn’t be able to make time to hang out with Bucky, too.

Bucky was a different man after leaving the army.  Darcy had seen him on her last trip home, after he’d arrived back in Point Lusa with an honorable discharge, a Purple Heart, and a fancy new left arm.  Steve was still stationed in Iraq and wouldn’t get another furlough for a few more months, so Bucky had to make the long trip back by himself. Prior to getting home, Darcy hadn’t mustered up the courage to ask him if he wanted to meet up, but Bucky took care of that himself.

That is, he showed up on her doorstep upon finding out she was flying home and waited until her mother drove up the dirt road.

“Hi,” he said quietly, closing his fingers tight over the prosthetic like he would have done his forearm, back in his brief moments of shyness or embarrassment in their childhood days. “How’s, uh...how’s it going?”

“Hey.”  She paused with the handles of her suitcases in her hands, glancing to her mother, who shrugged, clearly as clueless as Darcy had been.  So Darcy set down her suitcases next to the door and stepped forward to pull Bucky into her arms, leaning the side of her head to his chest.  “I’m...okay, how are you doing?”

“Good to see you.  I’ve meant to...to contact you before now, but…”  He looked around, spotting Alicia behind Darcy, and smiled as much as he could, turning out something like a grimace.  “...this is a bad time, probably. I can leave.”

“That’s okay,” Alicia chimed in, then brushed past him to the door, patting him on his right shoulder while she shuffled Darcy’s bags over the threshold.  “Come on in if you want some dinner.”

“Okay,” Bucky said dully, then let Darcy walk in before him, and shut the door neatly, locking it behind him.

Dad and Charlie looked confused enough to see the third party that, by the time both Bucky’s feet had crossed the threshold into the kitchen, they’d set out an extra plate for him, and Charlie had stood to let him take a seat.

“Bucky.  Good to see you, man.  We’re gonna, uh...we’re gonna let you guys have a minute.”  And before her father and brother left, they each pressed a kiss to the side of her head, and patted Bucky gently on his non-prosthetic shoulder.

Darcy made herself busy piling mashed potatoes, asparagus, and shredded pork onto each of their plates, not asking Bucky when he’d like her to stop, not asking him anything because she knew if he wanted to talk he would.  He’d been hard pressed to stop when they were kids, but now, with the silent act he was putting forth, she knew not to ask until he offered something up.

“Thanks,” was all she got until he finished his plate, eating slowly, diligently, like every bite had to be analyzed before he swallowed.  “I, uh...I’m sorry to just pop up on you like this. I’m sure this wasn’t the Christmas vacation you were expecting.” When she didn’t press him for more information, he plowed on.  “I’m back for good now. Kinda...got put out of commission.” He smiled sardonically down at his arm, then used its surprisingly flexible metallic fingers to tap, one by one, on the table beside his plate.

“How did it happen?”  She didn’t break eye contact with him, running the prongs of her fork across her mashed potatoes, as though she were ploughing the field between her house and Steve’s all over again.

“Was on the front lines, the usual.  Dropped my guard for a minute - we had a young kid just shipped over.  Didn’t want him to be scared.” He ran his fingers over the joints of the arm, coming to a rest at the apex where bicep and forearm would meet.  “I was looking at him, trying to get him to quit shaking for a goddamn second, and then, next thing I know…” He made a noise with his mouth like an explosion, and let out a humorless chuckle.  “What I’ve got from the elbow down is gone, and all I’ve got from the elbow up is...a mess.” He glanced down at her unfinished plate, and for the first time in many years, including the ones she’d known him, his face filled with color.  “Sorry. I forget I shouldn’t talk like that when people are eating.”

“It’s fine,” she told him hurriedly, but set her fork down for good measure.  “You know how it was growing up with Charlie. I’ve heard worse over dinner.”

“I’m out now.”  He cocked his head to the side, chewing on his lower lip.  “That’s really all there is to it, you know?”

“Yeah,” she’d said, and reached across the table to take his flesh hand in hers.  “I’m sorry, Bucky.”

“Eh, don’t be.”  He squeezed her hand back, and though the light in his eyes when he smiled at her had dimmed, the smile itself was genuine enough.  “I’m sorry for leaving.”

“Yeah, don’t be,” she echoed, and squeezed his hand harder before letting go, so she could finish off the remains of her dinner, or at least push them around her plate with her fork so Daddy wouldn’t bother her about it the next morning.  “You know you’re stuck with me, from here on out.”

It had been a promise.  And with all the overworked Christmas Eves, all the family vacations with her cousins in Lake Tahoe, all the years she’d missed in Point Lusa, it was a promise she hadn’t kept.

And that wasn’t okay.

While her mother and Sarah were still talking, almost feverishly, over the updates on Charlie’s newly ended relationship, Darcy loaded the last of the dishes onto the drying rack, dried her hands, and found her phone so she could type out a text to an old friend.

_ Hey Bucky, this is Darcy.  I’m back in town for the week.  Are you busy tonight? Was kind of hoping we could hang out.  Sorry for going MIA for so long _ .

Darcy hadn’t even put her phone down by the time that Bucky responded:  _ Would love to.  Meet me at Beckett’s at 9? _

* * *

 

Downtown Point Lusa presented the epitome of the small town Christmas movie with the way the lights clung to the trees, the store fronts were frosted with snow paint and decorated with styrofoam snowmen and woodland creatures in elf clothes.  Darcy found herself ducking into the small shops she’d forgotten about and coming out with gift wrapped trinkets stuffed into her pockets and purse, away from her mother’s and Sarah’s prying eyes.

“No way, you two are the chattiest Cathys I’ve ever met.  I’m not spoiling Christmas for anyone.”

“So they’re gifts for people we can spoil it for,” Sarah told Alicia slyly, placing a hand at the side of her mouth, as if to shield Darcy from hearing.  “Don’t ya believe you can outsmart me, Lewis, I’ve taught you half the tricks you know.”

“Oh, you’d be surprised,” Alicia drawled, leaning back to shoulder open the door of the garden shop, and let the other two pass her before entering herself.  “I think she’s learned a thing or two with that Jane of hers.”

“In  _ spite _ of that Jane of mine.  If she had her way, that girl would have her lab equipment melded to her hands.  You’d get crafty, too, if you had to think of new ways to fend off caffeined-up science nuts trying to get into their lab in the wee hours of the night.”

“Darcy?” said two voices at once, and their pitches and resonance couldn’t be more opposite.  When she looked up, her heart jumped and her stomach tumbled at the same time.

“Mrs. Edwards - Steve - hi.”

Mrs. Edwards got to her first, which Darcy chalked up to Steve’s being too polite to interrupt the tiny, wispy, white-haired woman as she hobbled from the counter to the entrance, where Darcy had frozen with a surprised smile plastered to her face.

“Darcy Lewis, it’s been quite some time since I’ve seen you.”

“It has, Mrs. Edwards.  How is everything?” She strung her arms around her former history teacher as gently as she could, for fear that Mrs. Edwards would crumble if she hugged her too tight.  For her part, though, Mrs. Edwards squeezed Darcy tighter than an eighty-odd-year-old woman should have been able to, especially with the six or so inches Darcy had on her.

“Things are wonderful, dear, quite wonderful, actually.  And you? What brilliant things have you been up to since you left us for school?”

Darcy felt the familiar stings of blood rising up her neck, as well as every set of eyes slowly rolling forward to wait and watch while she explained what she’d been up to the last twelve years.  She hadn’t been expecting to have this conversation here, in Sarah’s shop, in public, where anybody in town could walk in and hear her, but she supposed it was better to get it over with so she could polish her answer by the time Christmas dinner came.

“I’m good,” Darcy finally said, after realizing she’d been holding her breath.  “Good, I, uh...I got my degree in political science - you kind of inspired me when I took U.S. History with you, I wanted to learn more about the ways countries work - and, well, I’m not exactly doing much political work, but I  _ am  _ working with scientists pretty regularly.  I’m a lab supervisor at one of the Stark Tech research centers in Southern California.”

Mrs. Edwards smiled as widely as her mouth would let her, and a genuine twinkle in her eye told Darcy that she truly was happy to hear about her ventures into the real world.

“You must be making your family so proud, Darcy.   _ Lab supervisor _ .  Well, I’m glad some of my students enjoyed the political discourse in my class.”

“You have no idea, Mrs. Edwards.  Are you still teaching at Point Lusa Academy?”

The older woman shook her head, her twinkling smile fading into a soft, serene one.  “As of this winter break, I am retired. Christopher and I are taking up gardening, which is why I’m here.”

“We’re starting her off with some herbs and snake plants,” Steve added helpfully, straining the threads of his button-down shirt as he crossed his arms over his chest with a fond look in his eyes.  “Rosemary and thyme for your kitchen, snake plants for the living room. Pretty soon you’ll be on your way to orchids and banana plants.”

“One step at a time, Steve, dear,” Mrs. Edwards chuckled.  “Well, Darcy, it’s been lovely to see you. I’m sure we’ll run into each other again while you’re in town, so don’t be a stranger.”

“I won’t,” she promised, and watched the old woman exit the shop with a bag of seeds in one hand and a potted snake plant in the other.

“Darcy?”  Alicia caught her daughter’s gaze, her arm pressed to the door and Sarah, looking far too happy with herself, on her heels.  “We’re going to check out the new bakery on Third Street. Meet you there in a bit?”

“Okay.”  She raised a hand in farewell while her heart beat on in her throat, nearly drowning out the pleasant tinkle of the bell as her mother and Steve’s left the shop, as her mother and Steve’s left the two of them alone.

A long, palpable pause fell thick through the air between the leaves of the plants around them, and Steve cut through it as he swerved around the counter and fidgeted with the cuffs of his sleeves, then pushed them up to his elbows.  His eyes rose to meet hers, and a shy smile followed up to his lips.

“Hi.”

“Hi.”  Darcy dared herself to take a step closer.  “Been a couple years.”

“Yeah.  Yeah, it has.  It’s good to see you, though.  How, uh, how long are you in town for?”

“The next week and a half.  Got a lot more time on my hands than I need, to be honest.  Doesn’t seem like town has changed too much, huh?”

A sliver of teeth peeked out from Steve’s smile, and Darcy willed herself not to feel something heavy and warm swelling in her chest.  When his tongue flitted out to nurse a crack on his lower lip, the heavy, warm feeling dropped into her stomach.

“Not really, since the last time you were here.  God, when was that?”

“Five years.  When Bucky came home for good.”

Steve shook his head, blowing out a long, defeated breath.  “Damn, five years? When was the last time you and I saw each other?”

She chewed her lip.  Before she could answer, the soft tinkling of the bell behind her chimed in the entrance of a customer.  Steve took a moment to smile and wave and ask if there was anything he could help with, but the young couple who’d just ducked in under the ivy crawling across the wall above the door politely declined, making their way to the pots stacked in the far corner of the store.

“I should let you get back to...everything,” she said, and made a decidedly nonspecific gesture at the space around her.  Steve nodded, but took another step closer, awkwardly opening his arms. Darcy allowed herself to fall into them, his too-broad and too-warm chest smelling like linens and a soft but distinct musk.  After a moment, she spoke into his shirt. “And it’s been eight years, since the last time I saw you. For the record.” Very reluctantly, she let go, and glanced up at him with her heart thumping higher and higher in her throat.  “Furlough after your first tour. You know, after you got all...not tiny.”

Steve smiled and shook his head again, like he almost couldn’t believe that she’d remembered.  He promised her he’d take her for dinner the following night, so he could hear about all the ingenious schemes she’d been up to with Stark Tech, and so he could catch her up on all the town drama she’d missed.  As the couple sheepishly approached the counter, Darcy promised she’d be ready to meet him at seven. He flashed her another, somehow even warmer smile, and waved her out before ringing up the small succulent pots in front of him.

Making her way to Third Street to find the bakery, Darcy wasn’t sure exactly why her chest ached or why a familiar ball of tears was collecting in the back of her throat, but she had a funny feeling that Steve Rogers was about to break her heart again.


	3. once bitten, twice shy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song lyrics in this chapter from "Slow Burn" by Kacey Musgraves  
> Red Dead Redemption 2 spoilers ahead.

Three and a Half Days Till Christmas

_ Old soul, waiting my turn, I know a few things but I still got a lot to learn.  So I’m alright with a slow burn. _

They were supposed to meet for coffee, but when Darcy and Bucky got together, they weren’t really the sit-down-for-coffee type.  She met him outside the little cafe that they’d agreed on, and then ended up going across the street to their old high school haunt for pizza.  An extra large half-Hawaiian, half-combo (because, according to Darcy, “pineapple is for beasts who don’t care what goes on their pizza,” and, according to Bucky, “so are mushrooms, squirt”) and a couple of pints later, it was like they hadn’t been apart even a day.

“Okay,  _ clearly _ Dutch is not the most stable of leaders, but he is  _ not _ the villain of  _ Red Dead 2 _ .  It’s pretty obvious that Micah’s pulling the strings the whole damn time.”

“Nuh-nuh-no,” Darcy announced, giving his shoulder a gentle shove.  “See, Dutch is the one who gets the arc. He’s the one who  _ becomes _ the villain.  His agenda goes from questionable at best to...well, unhinged.  He didn’t start out a villain, but he becomes everything he always advocated against.  Micah’s been an asshole the entire time.”

“Dutch’s arc makes him an  _ anti-hero _ .”

“ _ Arthur’s _ arc makes him an anti-hero.  Anti-hero of my heart, Dutch be damned.”  For dramatic purposes, she pressed a hand to her chest, gazing earnestly up at him.  Bucky rolled his eyes and took another swig of his beer.

“Any other anti-heroes of your heart running around in California, or just the one fictional TB victim?”

She reached over to nudge his elbow with her knuckle, which didn’t do much to quell the devilish grin on his lips.

“No time for romancing Californian anti-heroes with all the scientists I have to keep fed, rested, and sane.  Nope, the only anti-hero I’m romancing these days is Jake Gyllenhand.” She raised her left hand and wiggled her fingers teasingly at him, and Bucky pulled a face that looked more exasperated than disgusted.

“You’re obscene.”

“You wouldn’t be friends with me if I weren’t.”

“Touché.”  He raised his glass in a wordless offer, and Darcy clinked hers against it, before draining the last bit of beer.  “So...you gonna ask me about the anti-heroes I’ve been romancing, or do I have to ask you a bunch of half-hearted questions about what you’ve been up to so you feel like you have to return the favor?”

She fought back a snort, growing more and more thankful that they’d chosen to do this.  “Okay. What kind of anti-heroes have  _ you _ been romancing, Bucky?”

“I’m glad you asked, Darcy.  I have recently been seeing someone from the VFW.  And by recently, I mean for the last year and a half.”

“Wow.”  She raised her eyebrows and felt the mischievous smile stretch across her lips.  “Sounds pretty serious. Look at you, Buck, getting tied down.”

“Yeah.  I mean, he’s a pain in my ass times eleven...but I guess I couldn’t see myself without him.”

If she thought she was raising her eyebrows before, now it was downright painful to keep them this high up on her forehead.

“‘He,’ huh?  When were you plannin’ on springing that one on me?”

“Tonight.  At least, I was hoping to spring it on you before you met him.  Which would hopefully be soon, if you’re up for it?”

“You kidding me?”  She made sure to wipe the pizza grease from her fingers before resting her hand on his and squeezing tight.  “You really think I’d ever miss out on meeting the man who tamed Bucky Barnes? C’mon, man, I almost wished you’d brought him out tonight.”

“He lives with me and Steve.  Maybe you can meet him after your, uh, date tomorrow night.”

The teasing notes between his words did not go unnoticed, nor the way that he busied himself with the last of his beer so that she’d feel like she needed to fill the silence.  Darcy waited him out, watching the way he watched her over the rim of his glass, the dancing glint in his eyes practically begging her to take the bait. When he finally finished the last gulp, she pressed her lips together tight.

“Sure you’re done?”

“Unless you wanna buy another round.”

“I didn’t know you were living with him.”

“Sam?  For the last six months or so, yeah.  Like you said, pretty serious.”

She narrowed her eyes at him before taking her glass and his, then proceeded to the counter to get that next round.  When she returned, Bucky was sitting tilted back in his seat, looking far too pleased with himself.

“See, I answered all your questions, I didn’t deflect anything.  Your turn, Lewis. What’s the deal with the date tomorrow?”

She took her time to finish the swig of her beer, chewing her lip by the time she was near ready to answer.  “I don’t know. I saw him at Sarah’s shop, he seemed excited to hang out. I didn’t know we were calling it a  _ date, _ though.”

“Oh, we’re not.  No, Steve was just smiling a little too much when he told me you were getting dinner tomorrow.  I’m the one calling it a date.”

Darcy huffed out a sigh.  “If you’re the only one calling it that, then it’s not.”

“ _ Au contraire _ , my dear.”  He drank from his pint glass with his flesh index finger wagging playfully at her.  “He definitely still likes you. You definitely still like him. Ergo, you’re going on a date.”

“Further  _ au contraire _ \- I do  _ not _ still have feelings for him.”  Bucky definitely noticed her leaving out the part about Steve having feelings for her, based on the way he was smirking like a cat about to corner a mouse. 

“Methinks the lady doth protest too much.  Plus, you blushed  _ bad _ when I called it a date.”  Darcy cursed herself, especially now, as she felt her cheeks grow hotter with every word.  “It’s okay, Darce. He was fucking ecstatic when he heard you were comin’ back to town. He likes you, too.”

She directed her gaze to her glass, and traced the rim with the tip of her middle finger.  God, he knew the two of them too damn well. 

“God, are we in high school again?  Feels like we’ve had this conversation before.”

“We have.  The last time you two dillholes didn’t want to admit you liked each other.”

She flushed again.  Bucky gave her the slight courtesy of tucking in to another slice of pizza and washing it down with his beer.  Subtracting the alcohol, the prosthetic, and rough throes of second puberty, the first time they’d had this conversation had probably looked pretty similar.  May have even taken place in this same part of the pizza parlor, if she were remembering right.

“Steve’s gonna ask you out soon, you know,” he’d told her, and she had nearly choked on the first bite of her first slice.  After a few moments of thumping her on the back and smirking like a damn jerk, Bucky waited for her to drink down some of her Pepsi before speaking again.  “I told him he should.”

“Why?” she rasped, then took another gulp of soda to calm her burning throat.

“Because he likes you.”

“No, he does not.”

Bucky kicked back in his chair until one of the employees gave him a hard look.  “Sure he does. Told me himself today.”

Darcy narrowed her eyes. “No, he did not.”

“Not verbally,” Bucky conceded, taking his time to glance at a tall blonde he’d spotted a couple of booths away.  “But I asked him, and he got all sweaty and shaky and pale. You know how he gets.”

“God, you probably just gave him another asthma attack, Buck, you know how easy he gets those.  I mean, _ I _ probably would, if you’d asked me something as ridiculous as, ‘hey, do you happen to  _ like _ our friend of God knows how many years?’”

A beat after saying it, she realized that she shouldn’t have.  A smile to rival the Cheshire Cat’s rose to Bucky’s lips before he threw her words right back at her.

“Hey, Darcy, do  _ you _ happen to  _ like _ our friend of God knows how many years, Steve?”

She felt the angry blush creeping up her neck and prickling into her cheeks, and when she opened her mouth, nothing but a vaguely irritated scoff escaped.  Bucky remained silent, that ridiculous smile threatening to split his face in half, and let the discomfort fill the quiet instead of goading her on. A sudden tightness had taken residence in Darcy’s chest, and she quickly folded her arms over herself in a final stand of defense.

“I...I don’t...I…”

“An asthma attack, this is not,” he drawled, finally stepping in to save her from the pain of her own awkwardness.  “You know it’s okay, right? That you like him and that he likes you?”

“No, it’s not,” she finally sighed, and pressed her hand to her forehead to shield her face from him.  “If we get involved, or if we...I don’t know, if we were to... _ date _ ...it could mess everything up.  Especially with you in the middle, and - ”

“See, I’m gonna stop you right there.”  When Darcy looked up, he’d put his finger up in warning, and the playful expression had vacated his eyes.  “First of all, you’re not my parents. So don’t pull the whole ‘losing the kid in the divorce’ thing. This ain’t about me.  Second, going on  _ one _ date, just to see what could happen ‘cause you’re both having feelings, isn’t gonna screw things up the way you think it will.  You go out, figure out you aren’t meant for each other, figure you tried and can go back to being friends. Not a huge deal.”

“I’m not worried about that.”  She chewed her lip, then fiddled with the straw of her drink, wishing she could just keep it making that squeaky sound instead of having to lay all her laundry out on the table for him.  “I’m not...worried we aren’t meant for each other.”

“So?”

She exhaled again and closed her eyes.  He knew her,  _ God _ , he knew her.  “You go to boot camp the day after graduation.  He’s already talking to the recruitment offices about leaving, like, the second he turns eighteen.  And I start school in California in September. I’m worried that we  _ do _ work out.  Like, we  _ are _ meant for each other.  And then I have to let go.  That’s what I’m worried about, Buck.  And you can’t tell me that’s not a good reason to be freaked out.”

Reluctantly, he nodded, folding his hands on the table in front of him.  “Yeah. Yeah, you’re right. It’d freak me out, too. But, Darce…” At this, he reached across as much as he could without dipping his elbows into the pizza between them to take her hands in his.  “...would you rather go on with your life just...just  _ wondering _ , ‘what if I didn’t?’”

Darcy blinked at him, taking a moment to let his words settle in with her.  When he finally let go of her hands, she shuffled a slice of combo onto her plate.

“When did you get so goddamn profound, Barnes?”

He chuckled and helped himself to a slice of Hawaiian.  “I’ve always been profound, Lewis, you just ain’t been paying attention.”

The grown-up Darcy tore herself away from the depths of her beer and the moments of her youth, to face a very now-oriented Bucky, who was still watching her intently from his spot across the table.

“Am I stupid for still having feelings?”

“No.”  Bucky paused, rolling a napkin idly between his fingers.  “Not stupid. Stupid for denying it so long, maybe, but not stupid just for having them.”

“It  _ is _ stupid, though,” she sighed, and picked up her unused fork to chop up her pizza into little crescent-shaped slivers.  “Because I’m going home next week, and the fact that  _ I’m _ the one leaving feels like terrible, disgusting irony.”

He frowned down at her plate, watching as she cut up her food like a child.  There was no argument to what she’d said - neither he nor Steve could expect her to give up the life she’d worked so hard to set up for herself in California - her friends, her cozy (albeit wildly overpriced) apartment, her dog, her job with Stark Tech...there was no way she’d give up her whole  _ life _ for a second chance with a guy she’d known a long time ago.  A guy who was very different since the first go-around.  _ She _ was different since the first go-around.

“Okay,” he said at last.  “Then why did you agree to go to dinner with him tomorrow?”

Darcy’s face burned white-hot once more.  “Because I missed him, I haven’t seen him in eight years, and he wanted to see me.  What, do you think I’m leading him on?”

“I don’t know,” he said quickly, maybe too quickly, his eyes darting down and an expression not too unlike shame pulling the corners of his lips down.  “I don’t think you’d ever hurt him intentionally. I just...I don’t know, I think the first time you guys shut it down before letting yourselves decide whether...you know, whether it was gonna work.”

“I did not shut it down.”  She leaned across the table, and a sour tone had slipped into her voice, the product of the bruise on her heart he’d just touched and her own shame at letting her heart still be bruised.  “I did not shut it down, Bucky, and you know that.”

“People make it work, Darce.”

“I was never going to just  _ wait _ , Bucky.  I had my own plans, I...I  _ have _ my own plans.  Army girlfriends, army wives...back then all they ever did was just...wait.  You know I can’t wait.”

He lifted his gaze again, this time with eyes so doleful and lost that she thought she might have hurt his feelings somehow.  Darcy thought the soreness in her chest would have faded a little, but by now it had only settled into a dull and singing ache.

“And that’s why he loves you, babe,” she swore she heard him say, more to himself than to her, his hand sliding across the table again to take hers.  “That’s why he loves you.”

* * *

 

Because he was the nosiest jerk this side of the Mississippi, Charlie arrived at Mom and Dad’s house to help Darcy get ready for her date - not date, she had to remind herself, just dinner - about an hour before Steve was scheduled to pick her up the following day.  Well, what he was doing couldn’t  _ really  _ be considered helping, seeing as the extent of his assistance was mainly sitting in the armchair in the corner of Darcy’s old room, eating Doritos while he watched her file through her suitcase for a pair of appropriate shoes and rummage through her old closet for a curling iron.

“Remind me why you’re here again,” Darcy sighed as she set aside most of her hair with a clip and began separating the rest of her locks to wrap around the iron.

“Well, one, I want to see how much effort you put into this, so when you tell me later that it wasn’t a big deal, I can call you a big fat liar.”  She glared at him through the mirror, and slowly drew the wand out of one perfect curl. “And, two, Dad’s making his chicken casserole. Wouldn’t miss that stuff for the world.”

“Shit, I haven’t had that since last Christmas.  Can you ask Dad to save me some for breakfast?”

Charlie snorted.  “Ask him yourself, junior.”

She rolled her eyes, sectioning off the next chunk of her hair to pull around the iron.  “Hey. Are you doing okay, though? With Jessie and everything?”

Charlie sobered quickly, the laughing expression on his lips softening to a point that was no longer lost, like she’d seen in him the other night, but like a gentle melancholy, like he was done fighting the pain that crept into him.

“I’ll be alright.  You know. I don’t...you know, I don’t really hold anything against her for it.  It makes sense, that she has to do stuff for her and for her job and her life, and I guess...I don’t know, I guess I’m not a part of what she sees for her future.”

Darcy chewed her lip, watching her brother in the mirror.  He’d slowed his pace reaching into the bag of chips, but now he was avoiding her gaze.

“You feel like she couldn’t have told you a little sooner, though?”

He shrugged.  “I guess she didn’t really see it until I asked her to marry me.  Like that kind of put it into perspective for her. Mom keeps going on about how she wasted those years of my life, but, I dunno, grand scheme of things, six years isn’t  _ that _ long.  You know?”

Darcy unleashed the hair that was pinned to the top of her head and turned around so she could face Charlie with a soft smile on her lips.  “I get what you mean. And I’m sorry all that went down with her. But I hope you both find what you’re looking for.”

Charlie smiled back, and rose from the armchair to sit just behind her on the edge of her old bed.  “What are  _ you _ looking for out of life, darling little sister?  You seem like you’ve got it all on lock.”

She couldn’t help rolling her eyes again, taking the next handful of hair to meet the curling iron.  “What am  _ I _ looking for?  I don’t know. I’ve got a decent job, a decent apartment, good friends...who could ask for more?”

“You want more than decent out of life, and you know it.  Otherwise, you wouldn’t be doin’ yourself up all fancy for one little dinner with  _ Steve _ .”

“Oh my God, I want to look nice for  _ one _ stupid dinner.  This does not mean that I’m plotting out marriage and babies with my best friend from high school.”

“And middle school, and elementary school…”

“I had my chance -  _ we _ , Steve and I,  _ we _ had our chance.  Sometimes things just aren’t meant to be, Char.”

“What, because of that British girl he brought home that one time?  You're really hanging onto  _that_? ”

“What?  No, not because of - not because of her.”  Her face was beginning to burn, and it wasn’t just because of the proximity of the curling iron wrapping around the last few strands of hair she still had to finish up.  “She was nice. She was good for him. But he’s...I dunno, he’s set up his life here, I’ve set up my life in California, things are good. Status quo isn’t terrible.”

“But I don’t want you to have a life that’s ‘not terrible.’”  Charlie huffed out a sigh and shook his head at her. “Kid, I want you to have a good life.  One where you’re  _ happy _ .  Not just content, not just decent, but happy.”

“I know.”  She nodded, and completed her last curl, letting it fall over her shoulder and brush against the neckline of her blouse.  “I know. I want that for you, too, you know? We just gotta...take it one day at a time, I think.”

“You got it, kiddo,” Charlie told her in a quiet sort of voice, and when she set down her iron and turned to face him, he was smiling a very gentle smile.  He opened his mouth to say something else, but a bright flash of light shone through the thin curtains, followed by the tell-tale rumble of a truck outside.  The smile on Charlie’s lips spread wide and his eyes narrowed, glinting with mischief. “Would it be tacky of me to walk you out?”

“Yes.”

Because it was Steve, the sound of the doorbell chimed through the house much more loudly than Darcy remembered it doing, and like moths to a flame, each and every member of Darcy’s family popped out from whatever it was they were up to and made their way into the foyer.  Mom with a pile of half-knitted yarn in her hands, Dad in his pajamas, and Charlie smirking up a storm. In spite of the way her cheeks already burned, Darcy plucked her jacket off the coat rack by the door and tucked herself in.

“Guys, come  _ on _ .”

In between thanking her lucky stars that he hadn’t brought a full-blown bouquet and cursing God for making him look so damn good in a button-down shirt, Darcy did her best to keep her heart from swelling in her chest at the hopeful tenderness in Steve’s eyes when he looked down at her.

“You look great,” he said almost immediately, then reached forward clumsily to pull her into a hug.

“Look who’s talking.  They don’t make any shirts with sleeves that fit?”

He snorted, reminding her that he, too, was human, then nodded back to the pickup waiting behind him.  “You hungry? I got us a table at Seven Sails.”

Darcy raised her eyebrows.  “Seven Sails? The good seafood place on Porter Street?”   _ The good seafood place where we went before prom _ .  A wave of nerves - and something else, something that Darcy couldn’t name, or maybe something she could, but wouldn’t - swirled in her stomach.  A tinge of pink ran across Steve’s nose and cheeks, but his smile didn’t falter as she stepped out the door and followed him to his truck.

She pretended not to see her parents and brother peering out the window to watch them on their way out.

“If you don’t feel like Seven Sails, we can go somewhere else - though I don’t recall you being too picky on food.”  He grinned down at her, making sure to open her door first and not letting go of the handle until she’d hopped all the way in and he could close the door again.

“Seven Sails works just fine.  Hipsters haven’t taken it over yet, though, have they?”

“Y’know,  _ you  _ might count as a hipster, coming all the way back out here from California.”

Darcy glared at him over the center console, wishing she could wipe that sweet expression right off his beautiful face.  “Don’t put it past me to jump back out. It ain’t that easy to just dazzle me with your fancy crab cakes and your…” What?  Acting like things were the same? Talking like twelve years hadn’t passed, and they were still best friends, still in high school?

Steve glanced over at her, the truck roaring to life under his touch, and though the mischievous smile had faded, there was still that tenderness, that damn  _ hopefulness _ in his eyes.

“I was worried you were gonna bring me flowers.”

“I was worried you’d hit me with them if I did.”   


“I would’ve.”

“I know.”

Her heart was thudding in her chest now, even though they’d been alone no more than two minutes so far, even though he was keeping a respectable distance, even though he was happy to let the silence between them fall comfortably, instead of trying to fill it with the fumbled questions that most people would after not seeing the One That Got Away after so many years.  But it was vain of her, to imagine that she was his One That Got Away. Presumptuous, that she could think of herself as someone he pined over, someone he loved the way she’d loved him.

“Bucky told me you guys got pizza the other day,” Steve told her after a moment, like he could hear the gears turning in her head.

“Yeah,” she said, watching the lane roll by out the window.  “Same old place, you know. And the same old Buck, of course.”

“He said he told you about Sam.”

“And I told him I was impressed he could finally find someone to tie him down.”

Steve couldn’t help smiling at that, and the rest of the car ride went much the same, back and forth like they were eighteen again.  Except, well, he was about hundred pounds heavier, a foot taller, and no longer asthmatic. Mom was right - puberty hit him like a truck and hit him well.

And Darcy?  Well...she was still Darcy.  Still a little shorter than she’d like to be, boobs a little bigger than she’d prayed for back when puberty was only knocking on her door, still as inappropriately sarcastic as ever, and still as neurotic about her schedule as she’d always been.  In fact, her planner still sat dutifully in the little handbag she’d brought with her, a purple pen at the ready.

When they arrived at the restaurant, Darcy pushed the door of the truck open before Steve got a chance to hop out, but he was too fast for her when it came to the front door at Seven Sails.

“Thank you,” she sang as she slipped around him into the entryway.

“You’re welcome,” he chuckled, and flagged one of the hosts.  “Hi - reservation for Darcy?”

“You made it under  _ my _ name?”

“Unless there’s another Darcy in town with a reservation for two, then yeah.”  He grinned down at her, and when the host waited to see whether they were done with the witty banter for the moment, he flashed on his most charming smile and led them to a window table with a good view of the downtown lights.

“Thanks for getting us a spot here.  I never would’ve thought to…” She shrugged and gestured vaguely around herself before unfolding the origami swan napkin and pulling it into her lap.

“No problem.  Thanks for coming, I, uh, wasn’t sure you’d want to.”  When she looked up from the leather cover of the menu in front of her, Steve wore an expression that could only be described as bashful, a tender pink flush glowing from his cheeks and ears.

Okay, maybe not  _ only _ bashful.  Maybe a tiny bit gorgeous and adorable, too.

“How are things going at the shop, then?”  Willing herself not to let herself look back up at him, not to let herself fall for him all over again just by knowing how warm he could make her feel just by the way he blushed, Darcy forced herself to peruse the menu, running her fingers over the slightly raised print on the paper.  “Your mom said business has gotten a lot better since you started there.”

“Things’ve been good.  Working there has been...I don’t know, almost therapeutic?”  He paused, and Darcy dared herself to glance up again. He was nose deep in his menu, tracing each item with the tip of his finger, almost studiously.  “I guess I like seeing folks figure it out. You know, like Mrs. Edwards the other day. She’s starting off with the easy stuff, and soon enough she’ll be on her way to the real difficult plants.  And the cool thing is, every time a regular comes back in with something more challenging, you can really  _ see _ how happy they are to, you know, be advancing.”  That blush reddened his face once more, and Darcy felt her own cheeks doing the same.  “I’m sorry. I feel like I’m going on and on. What about you? Is Stark Tech as glamorous as the commercials make it out to be?”

She chuckled and rolled her eyes.  “God, I’m not in an executive suite or anything.  It’s basically glorified babysitting. Except the babies are grown men and women with lab coats, and instead of keeping them from sticking forks in electrical outlets or eating toys, I gotta keep them from drinking their weight in coffee or...trying to rip holes in the space-time continuum  _ after _ drinking their weight in coffee.”

“I don’t know, sounds like a pretty important position.  You enjoying it, then?”

Something stuck in her throat, and while she was usually ready with the default answers she’d had to prepare since graduating, since finding this job, since...she’d  _ ever _ done something that was a change in her life, for some reason, none of her usual default answers was strong enough to leave the tip of her tongue.  Before the awkwardness of her inability to respond could settle in, though, the waiter stopped at their table with a smile to rival the host’s.

His questions about wine and food were just slightly easier, but at least this time Darcy could speak instead of just staring at the guy like an idiot.  It also helped that Steve stepped in to ask for a whole bottle of the merlot she liked.

“Trying to ply me with alcohol there, Rogers?”

He gave her a look, like he couldn’t believe her, then leaned forward and stage whispered, “I’ve never ordered a bottle of wine out at dinner before.”

“Oh, my God, shut up.”

“I’m serious.  You’re popping my bougie-wine-bottle-cherry.”

“Steve Rogers, you are going to kill me.”  Before she knew what she was doing, she’d reached across the table, and because Steve was still shifted toward her in his seat, his hand was just close enough for her to grab.  She locked her fingers between his almost as soon as their skin had met, and even though he had been a bona fide US Army man, even though she was sure he’d been able to make split-second life or death decisions on the battlefield, he was slow in recognizing what she’d done.

Once her fingertips touched down on his knuckles, he looked down at where they were joined, and that beautiful soft pink filled his cheeks again.  Darcy felt her neck burn more furiously than she thought it ever could.

“Darce?”

“I’m sorry, I just - ”

“No, no, it’s okay...I…”  He squeezed her hand gently, and Darcy didn’t miss the way his tongue dipped out to wet the edge of his lower lip.  “I like this.” He furrowed his brow, glancing back up at her, and the way he was looking at her, somehow so soft and so heavy at once, made something in her chest both swell and curl into itself at the same time.  “Is it...is it okay that I like this?”

“Steve,” she mumbled, but based on the way her thumb was running across the heel of his palm, it looked like her hand had no intention of leaving his anytime soon.  “I’m leaving on the thirtieth. You really want to do this again?”

“Honey,” he said, equally gently, and Darcy felt herself coming closer and closer to that line that couldn’t be crossed, that point of no return that she’d promised herself she’d never touch.  “I know I messed things up. I know I hurt you. And I know I don’t deserve another chance. But on the off chance...on the off chance you wanted this, maybe just a little, maybe just half as much as I do, I would be happy to have just this week with you.  And if by the thirtieth you want me to just be, you know, Steve Your Old Neighbor Back in Texas, I can be that guy. But if you want something else...I can only hope you’d give me a chance.”

In a flash she was eighteen again.  And it was his birthday, and their “two monthiversary.”  During the day they’d gone to the Fourth of July parade downtown, and at night they’d eaten burgers and hot dogs they’d made themselves on the grill on the side of Steve’s house.  After dinner, he drove her farther up the lane to a flat spot on the side of the mountain by their houses, and wrapped up in sleeping bags they’d taken on family camping trips plenty of times before, Steve held her in his skinny arms while the fireworks burst in the sky above them.

And he kissed her again and again, until her lips were swollen and her hair mussed and her throat almost raw from whispering over and over how much she loved him, and how much she wished they could have had more time.

In a flash she was eighteen again, lying in her bed while he fumbled on a condom, and he was telling her how beautiful she was, how much he loved her and how much he wanted to  _ show _ her how much.

In a flash he was inside her again, clumsy and messy and stroking her face with his thin fingers, his nose just brushing hers as he kissed her, as he pushed into her as slowly as he could, as he searched her eyes to make sure he wasn’t hurting her.

In a flash she was gasping his name under her breath, her hands on the back of his neck and her legs around his small waist, holding him close, as she searched her eyes to make sure he loved her just as much as she loved him.

In a flash she was waking up to a cold bed and sunbeams too bright for how early it was, and to the sound of his truck rumbling to life across the way.

In a flash she watched through the window as he sat in the passenger seat in his military uniform, watching through the window as the silent tears began to roll down her face.

In a flash she was holding the letter in her hands, the one that told her he loved her, and he was sorry, and he could never ask her to wait for him because she should have more than that.  The letter that told her it would have killed him to have to say goodbye to her, and that if I love you was the last thing he  _ did _ say to her, it was more than what he deserved.

In a flash she was thirty years old again, holding his hand in hers, and he was telling her he loved her still, and even though the words themselves never quite left his lips in the swanky seafood place he wanted to treat her to, the look on his face wouldn’t let her forget that he was honest about loving her still, and honest about wanting to do things right this time.

And in a flash, Darcy Lewis was certain she had that same look on her face as she promised Steve another chance, if only for this week, if only for Christmas, that they could maybe let themselves fall in love again.


	4. fresh fallen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry, in advance.

One Day Till Christmas

_ Well now I’m told that this is life, and pain is just a simple compromise so we can get what we want out of it.  Would someone care to classify our broken hearts and twisted minds? So I can find someone to rely on. _

When her father came knocking on her door at seven a.m. sharp on the morning of Christmas Eve, Darcy was very close to regretting letting Steve buy them that bottle of wine with dinner.

“Time to go fishing, Darce, c’mon,” he called through the thin wood, and Darcy could hear the fishing poles clanking together outside her room, Dad’s boots thunking down on the floor as he made his way into the kitchen.

They had this tradition, every year, of going fishing up the creek behind the house on the morning of Christmas Eve.  Darcy would usually pack them sandwiches, made with whatever meat Dad had roasted the previous night, and they’d stay on their fishing spot until they’d either filled their bucket with bluegills or halfway filled it and thrown their shoulders out after casting the line a billion times.

It usually played out like the latter scenario, but regardless, Darcy liked spending the downtime with her dad.  She loved him more than she could say, and even on a morning like this, even after sharing a bottle of wine with another man she loved more than she could say the night before, she wouldn’t pass up that time for anything.

“You were out pretty late last night, huh, junior?” Dad asked, once she’d gotten into an old pair of jeans, a flannel, and her favorite beanie and had trudged her way into the kitchen behind him.

She remembered the chicken casserole Charlie’d teased her about the previous night and decided, like the gremlin she was right now, to wrap that up in foil and bring a couple of forks instead of going to the  _ incredibly _ draining task of making a couple of sandwiches.

“Not  _ that _ late.  I came home right after we were done with dinner.”  And because she was just the tiniest bit hungover, she stole the bottom of Dad’s bagel from the toaster as it popped up, quickly sinking her teeth into the hot, fluffy bread.

“Yeah?”  He poked his head up from packing the tackle box, with a smile on his face that was a little too excited for Darcy’s liking.  “Seems like dinner went well, huh?”

“ _ Daddy _ ,” she groaned.

In truth, it  _ had  _ gone well.  Like, really, really well.  They ate their dinners (lobster ravioli and mussels in linguine, for the record) over the slightly awkward but also slightly thrilling realization that this was it.  This was really happening. Over the table, Steve would occasionally reach across to stroke the flat of her hand with his thumb, and Darcy would feel herself blush and she’d smile at him and he’d smile at her, and if the other tables couldn’t see the hearts in each of their eyes, they simply hadn’t been looking hard enough.

“So I’ve heard we’re spending Christmas dinner together,” he’d drawled, smiling curiously at her over his glass of wine.

“I’ve heard the same.”  Darcy tucked into what was now her third glass, running her thumb over the plush of her lower lip when a stray drop fell there.  She was starting to feel a little warm, a little tingly, and though it may have been just...this, this old and new thing blooming between them, she trusted that the wine was what made her feel shiny and her cheeks full and rosy.  “And I regret to admit to you that I haven’t gotten you anything for Christmas. Yet.”

Steve laughed softly.  “Shit. Well, I regret to admit to you that I, uh...have.  I hope that’s not weird.”

“No,” Darcy said, perhaps a little too quickly.  “No, it’s not. I would’ve gotten you something earlier, if I’d known we were actually doing Christmas together a little sooner.  Is there anything you might need, that you can think of?”

He bit his lip, shaking his head, and looked up at her with a tender smile.  “Doll, you don’t have to get me anything. Just agreeing to spend time with me this week...that’s more than enough.”

Suffice it to say, Darcy had melted at that, and had taken his hand in hers once more, pulling it to her lips so she could press his knuckles to them.  “You’re, like, annoyingly adorable, Rogers. Anyone ever tell you that?”

“You and Bucky, in your own special ways.”  He gave her fingers a gentle squeeze, before the smile on his face faded a little.  “My mom needs me to open early tomorrow for the last minute shoppers, so I gotta take you home soon, Darce.  I’m sorry to cut us so short tonight, but do you have plans tomorrow evening? Me, Bucky, and Sam are doing our dinner and exchange, so we were thinkin’ maybe you could come over and see the place.  Would you be open to that?”

He was looking at her so hopefully, so earnestly, her ears started to burn, too.

“Yeah.  Of course.”

Steve’s smile blossomed, and, wine or no wine, something in Darcy’s chest was blossoming as well.  She wrapped her free hand around his, and for that moment, let herself enjoy the warmth of his skin against hers.

“One condition, though.  We watch the first  _ Harry Potter _ to ring in Christmas Eve, like we used to in high school?”

He laughed, maybe a little too loudly, and flagged down the waiter to get their dinners packed, and to bring the check by.  Predictably, he would hold the door open for her on the way out of the restaurant, and had the passenger door open for her when they got to his truck, and had walked her to her door once they arrived at her house.

“So…” said Darcy, as soon as they’d reached her porch and were lingering in front of the front door.  She had a feeling her entire family was waiting just on the other side, but at this point, she couldn’t bother herself to care.

“So,” Steve echoed, his hands buried deep in his pockets.  “Text me tomorrow when you want to come over?”

“Sure thing.”  They looked at each other a moment, and as though they were seventeen again, gangly and pimpled and awkward, Darcy could feel an electricity buzzing between them, tense, foreign.  “So...is this where I ask you to kiss me, or you ask me if you  _ can _ kiss me?  ‘Cause...I don’t know, like, I’ve seen you naked, but, I mean, not exactly like this, so - ”

He cut off her babbling by placing a hand on her waist with the speed of lightning, and by pulling her close with the same quickness.  Before she could blink, they were nose to nose, and Steve was smiling softly at her with a twinkle in his eyes that threatened to make her heart burst.

“Can I kiss you?” he said, and though he already knew the answer, he waited until Darcy had given the briefest of nods before letting his lips press to hers, cradling the curve of her mouth, both tender and heated, soft enough that she wanted him closer and hard enough to satisfy the warm swooping in her belly.

And while kissing him painted her lips hot, swollen, and pink, while she couldn’t get enough of him holding her and pressing himself to her the way he was, it had to end, before she tore into his clothes and begged him to have her here, on her front porch.

Darcy pressed a gentle hand to Steve’s chest and took a reluctant step back.  “Wow. Jesus. Uh...well - I guess I’ll - I guess I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said, and planted another kiss on her cheek for good measure, before turning and making his way back to his truck.  “Goodnight, Darcy.”

“Goodnight, Steve.”

Before she’d unlocked the front door, though, Darcy could have sworn she’d seen a single light on in the house across the way, and the silhouette of a figure standing in the front window.  As Steve got into his truck and Darcy raised her hand to wave goodbye, out of the corner of her eye, she saw the light go out.

“Sarah sent me a text this morning,” Daddy mumbled, shifting the tackle box against his hip, and rested her fishing pole on the wall by the side door for her to pick up once she’d loaded up the cooler with their food and a couple of bottles of water.  Once she’d clicked the cooler shut, she made her way to the fishing pole and followed him out the door. “Said she saw you doin’ smoochies with Steve when he dropped you off last night.”

“Daddy.”

“So...this mean you guys are getting back together, then?”

“ _ Daddy _ .”  As much blushing as she’d been doing the past couple of days, discussing her love life with her father would make her face burn hotter than she could ever remember it burning.  “I really,  _ really _ don’t feel like talking about this with you.  Okay?”

“I just wanna know he’s not gonna break my little girl’s heart again, Darce.”

She sighed and kicked a rock into the softly rushing water of the creek, wishing more than anything that she could stop this conversation before it had started.  “I’ve got everything under control, okay? Ball’s in my court, and whatever happens, I’m going back to California at the end of the week. Whether or not Steve’s a part of the equation when I go home...I’ll figure it out then.”

Dad nodded wordlessly, and the rest of the way to their fishing spot, he told her about the parents and kids she’d played soccer with way back when, and what they were up to now, and who in town had said hi or gotten engaged or pregnant or had split up from whoever they’d been dating.  Once he’d found the place where the land dipped a little and the creek widened, he sat down on what he’d dubbed His Rock and stuck the worm with his hook.

“How was your dinner with Bucky the other night, by the way?  What’s goin’ on with him?”

“He’s good.”  Darcy plopped onto a rock of her own and reached into Dad’s tackle box for a worm of her own - and though this was a ritual for them, the baiting was definitely her least favorite part.  “Dating somebody new. I guess they’ve moved in together, but I haven’t gotten many more details from him about that. I’m going over tonight for a little bit, so I’ll probably meet, you know, whoever it is then.”

She was hesitant about discussing  _ all _ the details she had about Bucky’s new flame - in case Dad didn’t know that Bucky was dating a man, or in case he didn’t know Bucky dated men at all, but her anxieties were dissuaded when Daddy smiled and said, “Sam’s a good guy.  Bucky’s luckier than he deserves.”

“Don’t I know it,” Darcy chuckled, then flung her cast upstream and got ready to be patient.  “They’re doing the exchange tonight, and I haven’t gotten any of them gifts. Got any recommendations?”

Daddy looked thoughtfully down into the creek, wiggling his reel a little to catch the attention of any nearby fish.  “Sam does a lot of skiing up in the mountains, Buck tells me, so I’d say something to keep him warm. Bucky...he’s not enough into the Christmas spirit yet, so your mother and I got him one of those ugly sweaters that lights up.  Maybe something that goes with that? And as for Steve - well, you may wanna work that one out on your own, sweetheart. Don’t want to have to tell your new old boyfriend you got his gift idea from your dad.”

“We’re calling him my new old boyfriend?”  Now seemed like a pretty good time to crack open the cooler, and start digging out the chicken casserole leftovers she’d been coveting since the night before.  “Can’t we just keep calling him Steve?”

“Yeah, yeah,” her dad chuckled with a flippant wave of his reeling hand.  “Of course we can, Darcy. I just wanted to acknowledge that...that you seem happy.”

Darcy set down the chunk of foil-wrapped food on the rock next to her and reached across to put an arm around her dad’s shoulders and lean into his side.  David Lewis had always been a little round, and had always made the perfect Santa when they’d been kids, but now he was the perfect amount of squishy to give the best hugs even an adult Darcy could appreciate.  She let herself close her eyes when he pressed a kiss to the side of her head, his large and calloused hand rubbing the side of her arm when it had made its way around her as well.

“I love you, Daddy.”

“Love you, too, junior.”

It was then that a tug wiggled Darcy’s line, making her fishing rod bump against her knee.  Dad grinned and released her, half-shouting out his encouragement for her to reel, reel it in, and Darcy half-shouting that yes, she remembered how to fish, and rolling her hand madly around the reel until a puny bluegill rose flailing from the water on the end of her hook.

“He  _ sucks _ .”

“The first catch of the day is supposed to suck - hang on, I think I’ve got a bite.”

Apparently, the second, third, fourth, and fifth catches of the day were also supposed to suck, because by the time the sun had crested over an otherwise overcast sky, they hadn’t caught anything over a pound.  Dad huffed out a sigh at their half-filled bucket and decided to close his tackle box.

“I think this is as good as it’s gonna get, kid.  Well, I gotta go to Austin anyway for the last of your mom’s presents, so what kind of meat should I get from the meat market for dinner tomorrow night?”

Darcy hitched their fishing rods against her shoulders and scooped up the empty cooler, while Dad grabbed their measly bucket and the lures.  “I always like that skirt steak you do with the teriyaki marinade. Plus they have those good pork chops Charlie likes.”

Daddy nodded, gently bumped his daughter with his shoulder, and walked her the rest of the way to their house, planting a tender kiss to the side of her head before she claimed the shower and got ready to head into town to find gifts for Steve, Bucky, and Sam.

* * *

 

“That’s  _ maybe _ the most hideous sweater I’ve ever seen in my life.”  Across Steve’s broad chest grinned up at her the most ostentatious, glittered, fuzziest rendition of Santa Claus Darcy had ever seen, as Steve opened the door for Darcy to muscle in all three large gift bags for the exchange.  “Why the hell didn’t you tell me before you do ugly sweaters?”

“‘Cause we’ve been trying to get him to quit the tradition,” called out a deep voice from the corridor beyond the doorway, and a handsome guy Darcy could only assume was Sam stepped into the light to take the plate of Christmas cookies out of her hands and lighten the load of gift boxes piled in her arms.  His sweater was equally terrible, with a pantsless Santa plopped on a chimney with a newspaper, presumably dropping a Yule Log or two into someone’s fireplace. “Nice to finally meet you, Darcy Lewis. I’ve heard a lot.”

“Likewise, Sam - I didn’t get a last name.”

He chuckled, revealing a gap in his two front teeth that reminded her of the one she’d had years before, before her parents had sold a car for braces.  He allowed Darcy to pass him by in the hallway and into their apartment, and Steve shut the door behind her. “It’s Wilson. Can I get you anything to drink?  Beer, wine, water? Nog?”

“Is there rum in the nog?”

“Would it be nog without rum?”  He led her to the kitchen, which was small but filled with delicious smelling pots and pans, and to the crockpot, which was large and filled with delicious looking, creamy eggnog.  “So Bucky’s held up in traffic, but he called and said he’d be home in about twenty minutes. I hope Steve and I don’t bore you to death in the time it takes him to get here.”

Sam had a good natured smile, and he poured a mean nog, so he was already good in her book.  When she and Steve found their spots on the loveseat, Sam plopped into the armchair across from them, tossing on  _ Home Alone _ and turning down the volume so they could talk.

“So, infamous Darcy Lewis, Steve tells me you work in a lab with a bunch of crazy science brains.  How’d you get into doing that?”

“I, uh, had an internship with this awesome scientist Jane Foster my senior year of college?  She locked up a big deal with Stark Tech for some of her astrophysics work on advanced space travel.  Which sounds a lot like  _ Star Wars _ , but there’s a lot more...particle stuff involved.”  She waved her hands around as if it would help her prove her point, but Sam was nodding like he was genuinely interested.

“I heard y’all are working with Bruce Banner - the gamma radiation guy from Culver?”

Mid-sip, Darcy nodded vigorously before setting down her mug of nog.  “Yeah, Bruce is  _ crazy _ smart.  Super quiet, though.  He tries to keep to himself, but Jane and I finally persuaded him to come to the company holiday party this year.  Tony got him  _ wasted _ and that dude tore up the dance floor.  Was like he was a whole other person.”

“You’re on a first name basis with Tony Stark from Stark Tech?” Steve cut in from beside her, loosely holding a beer glass at his knee.

Darcy shrugged.  “Yeah, I mean - he’s as ridiculously smart as he seems, but he’s also a giant dork.  I think he’s the only one in the company who shows up to work in band tees.”

“What kinda band tees?” Sam asked, lifting his nog mug to his lips.

“Sabbath, Van Halen, lots of AC/DC, some Grateful Dead.  Say what you want about the man, Tony Stark does not mind showing his age.”  A flicker of action played across the screen, and Darcy glanced up at tiny Macaulay Culkin.  “Sometimes I like to imagine that Kevin McCallister went on to, like, MIT or something, and became the engineering king of home security.”

“Or a cop,” Steve added, leaning back into the couch and scooting almost unnoticeably closer, so that his knee rested against Darcy’s.  “Same vein as maybe Jake Peralta? Just a tiny bit smarter though.”

“Jake Peralta is a certifiable genius and you know it, Rogers,” called Bucky from the hallway, and Darcy jumped to her feet as the lock clicked shut, and Bucky, hair tousled and nose and cheeks bitten by the cold, shuffled into the living room shortly thereafter, throwing an arm around her in greeting.  “Hey, squirt.”

“Merry Christmas, Buck.  Sam said you were stuck in traffic?”

He sighed, unwound the scarf from his neck, and tossed it onto the coat rack near the entryway to the kitchen.  When he saw that the food was out and ready, he rubbed his hands together like an old comic book villain. He handed Darcy a paper plate with a snowman on it and then grabbed one for himself.  “Yeah, there was an accident on the highway. Must’ve cleared up by the time I got there, though, didn’t see anything. You guys start up  _ Harry Potter _ yet?”

Sam rolled his eyes before getting up to kiss Bucky on the cheek and follow him up the line of food.  “‘Hi, Sam. Thanks for makin’ such amazing nog, Sam.’ It’s like I move in and all I hear are more demands.”

“I’m not demandin’ nothin’, turd.  Merry Christmas.” He had to stand just a little taller to kiss Sam on the cheek, and Darcy couldn’t help but watch the way Sam’s playful grin widened.  She couldn’t help feeling her stomach tumble with excitement when she looked away and Steve came to her side, squeezing her elbow and pressing a kiss of his own to the side of her head.

“You old birds can relax,” Steve rumbled from beside her, and when Bucky saw the way that his hand had snaked around her waist, he grinned his cunning cat grin at her.  “I popped in the DVD, once everyone’s all set, we can start the movie. By the way, Sam, Darcy’s peanut butter kiss cookies are the  _ best _ , so take what you can get, ‘cause they always go fast.”

“Noted,” Sam chuckled, and promptly topped his plate with about five of said cookies.  Darcy’s cheeks burned hot again. “But seeing as you’ve never had my jalapeño poppers, I gotta brag on those, too - my jalapeño poppers are  _ ridiculous _ .”

“They are.”  Bucky turned to roll his eyes at her, but mooted his own point a little by shoving one of the poppers into his mouth.

They  _ were _ ridiculous, for the record, the same way that Bucky’s pirozhki were always ridiculous, and the same way that Steve’s roasted veggies were always ridiculous.  By the time the four of them had gotten to the couches and settled in with  _ The Sorcerer’s Stone _ , Darcy was kind of starting to regret picking jeans over yoga pants.

“Dinner’s awesome, guys, thank you so much.”  She let out a deep exhale and fell back into the headrest, stiffening a little when she felt Steve under her shoulder and relaxing when he adjusted for her to lean into him.

“Thanks for coming, Darce.  We’re  _ real  _ glad to have you.”  Bucky smirked into his own mug of nog, and winked when he caught her eye.

“So, Sam, have these guys told you what the deal is with the whole  _ Harry Potter _ on Christmas yet?” Darcy said quickly, setting down her plate and her mug and trying not to look too excited when Steve rested his hand on her thigh.

“No, actually, I think they like keeping me in suspense about it, for whatever reason.  What’s the deal with  _ Harry Potter _ on Christmas?”

“When we were younger, the movies always came out around Thanksgiving, so we’d go see them after Thanksgiving dinner.  So when they came out with the second one, we started watching the first one on Thanksgiving, and then going off to see the next one in theaters.  

“Well, in high school, my uncle - he lives in Venezuela for half the year - he tells us the movies that are out in theaters in the US are out on DVD in Venezuela.  But he only came around for Christmastime. So when they started changing the release dates around, he’d just bring the latest  _ Harry Potter _ at Christmas and we’d all watch it Christmas Eve, and then open gifts whenever the Christmas scene was on.”

“Because there’s always a Christmas scene,” Steve added helpfully through a mouthful of peanut butter.

“And we  _ always _ waited to watch the newest one.  Right, Buck?” Darcy goaded, prodding Bucky on the knee with her fork.

“I went and saw  _ Goblet of Fire _ on  _ one date _ , and these assholes haven’t let it go ever since.”

“Well, because they held up their end of the bargain, yeah?” Sam chuckled.  It didn’t take Steve two seconds to reach across with knuckles for Sam to pound.  Darcy smiled into her plate, knowing that she and Steve had gone to see  _ Goblet _ the day before Bucky had come clean with them about his own date.

When Harry woke on Christmas morning, Steve was the first to get up and start parsing out gifts from under the tree.  Darcy tried to get up to help, but Bucky pushed gently on her shoulder and stood himself.

“Hang tight, kid.  And here, lemme get your plate.”

“Thanks, Buck.”  As soon as her plate was out of her hands, a present was in them.  The tiny tag atop the wrapping read in a tidy print  _ From Sam, to Darcy _ , and she felt her cheeks warm yet again.  “Sam, you didn’t have to get me anything.”

He shrugged, looking entirely too satisfied with himself.  “Well, when Bucky told me you were comin’ over for Christmas Eve, I saw that at the store, and, from what I’ve heard of you, this just seemed like something you needed.”

When she carefully tore through the bright red wrapping, underneath lay a planner for the following year, one with pugs all over the cover and pug stickers inside.  In short, it was absolutely perfect, and Darcy was starting to wonder exactly how much Bucky and Steve had told him about her.

“Sam, this is amazing - I love it.  Thank you so much.”

Shortly thereafter he ripped into her gift to him - a pair of extra thick, extra warm socks for the snow and a gift card to the nearest sports shop, so he could buy the ski helmet or goggles that he liked.  And of course he loved it, even though it was nowhere near as personal as his gift to her, and of course he hugged her, because he was the sweetest damn thing to happen to Bucky and he gave the best hugs.

The rest of her gifts were about as well-received - Bucky grimaced at the ugly Christmas sweater she’d gotten him but immediately pushed his head and arms through the holes; Steve kept running his fingers over the leather covering of the art supplies case and tracing the insignia near the handle.  

But Bucky had gotten her a beer glass with the streets of Point Lusa engraved in them, filled with chocolates - God, he knew her so well - and Steve...well, Steve had gone full Rogers on her.  A signed book from her favorite activist/writer, a set of multicolored roller pens, and a necklace with a tiny blue stone for a pendant, with a tag that proclaimed her an adventurer and explained the qualities associated with the African turquoise dangling from the chain.

“God, Steve, this is beautiful,” she whispered, letting the gold on the chain brush the skin of her fingers, cool and smooth and almost soft.  He unhooked the clasp and reached around to put it on her, and when his pinky glided over the smooth plane of her neck, Darcy had to fight not to shiver.

“Looks beautiful on you.  ‘Adventurer.’” She turned around to face him, and he drew his thumb over her bottom lip.  Steve was smiling, and something low in Darcy’s chest was making her warm again, but this time she was certain she wasn’t blushing.  “Okay if I kiss you again?”

“As long as the kids aren’t looking.”  Over his shoulder, she spotted Sam and Bucky doing the dance of lovey for one second and arguing the next, but never with their eyes or hands off the other.  “Kids aren’t looking. Affirmative on the kiss, Rogers.”

If she had wondered whether the warmth of his lips had only been a memory, or a dream from days long past, she knew now that it couldn’t have been.

They were just as warm and just as soft as she’d remembered.

* * *

 

By the time the third  _ Potter _ had started rolling on the TV, Sam and Bucky had gone to bed and Darcy was very near dozing off herself, her forehead pressed into Steve’s shoulder.  The tell-tale ding of a phone message went off somewhere to her left, but she was so bleary-eyed she let her hand fall to her side before it could reach.

“Sorry, I thought I turned my phone off.” Steve rumbled beside her, and Darcy nodded, humming as she closed her eyes again and leaned into him, adjusting to tuck her feet under her.  But she was shaken aside when Steve sat up abruptly, and as bleary as her eyes were, she opened them wide at the way his breathing changed, the way a stern line formed between his eyebrows.  “Darce - I - shit, I’m so sorry.”

She read the message probably three or four times before she could put it all together.  But once the words finally clicked into place, she could very nearly feel her heart stop.

**_Charlie_ **

_ Steve, is Darcy with you?  Been calling her, I think her phone’s on silent.  Dad’s in the hospital, accident on the highway. Please get her here as soon as you can.  -C _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for reading - hopefully I'll have Christmas Day done by February -_- let me know what you think!  
> Song lyrics from "Misguided Ghosts" by Paramore.  
> References to gifts come from Google shopping and the Uncommon Goods site; they have amazing stuff there!


	5. for warmth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song lyrics in this chapter from "Beautiful People, Beautiful Problems" by Lana del Rey and Stevie Nicks.  
> ANXIETY ATTACK DESCRIBED AHEAD.  
> Christmas in May!

Christmas Day

_Blue is the color of the planet from the view above, long live our reign, long live our love.  Green is the planet from the view of a turtle dove, till it runs red, runs red with blood._

Darcy was six years old, and her mom had taken her, Steve, and Charlie to the park near downtown, so they could get lunch, play, and then, if they were really good (and not too tired out from playing), they could visit the local toy store on top of the coffeehouse.  Charlie was nice enough to play with the littler ones for about five minutes - never making Darcy or Steve feel bad for being younger, like many older brothers tended to do - but when a friend from his baseball team showed up and dared him to race up the jungle gym, Darcy couldn’t fault him for speeding away through the tanbark.

Steve was nice, she had figured so far.  Kind of quiet, and didn’t ask to use her toys too much, like Stacy Lundgren did, before she moved schools.  He liked to play the same games as Darcy, like _Lion King_ and cops and robbers, and most of the time he let her be whoever she wanted, so she tried to switch off and let him play who she’d been playing before.  Today, they were just going back and forth on the playground, but when Darcy clung to the monkey bars, swinging her feet because it was fun and Steve finally made his way down the slide, she looked down at him with a curious frown on her face.

“Where does your daddy live?” she finally asked, then let go of the bars and let herself crash into the tanbark, bending her knees so she wouldn’t fall forward.  Steve puckered his lips to one side, like he was thinking hard.

“Ma said my daddy went to heaven.  I don’t think you can live there, though.”  He pushed off the slide and walked closer to her, then plopped into one of the swings.  Darcy sat on the one next to him. “He used to be a p’liceman.”

“Is that why you moved here?”  She was reaching over to pat his elbow, not because she felt it would help - she didn’t have a concept of that yet, not quite yet - but because it just felt like the right thing to do.

“Ma said she wanted to start over.  So I gotta go to a new school, and make new friends, and put things in the new house…”  His toes barely dangled far down enough to brush against the ground. When he dug the rubber part of his shoe into the tanbark, Darcy sucked her lip into her teeth, but made sure her mama wasn’t watching first, because Mama always had _something_ to say about that.

“Well,” Darcy started off, and then that hand that had reached out to pat his elbow was reaching down to hold his hand, swinging her body a little closer to his.  “You don’t gotta make _too_ many new friends.  You got me.”

She decided that day that Steve had probably the nicest smile she’d ever seen.

Little did she know at the time, that was the day Steve decided he loved her with all his heart.

* * *

 

Nothing.

Nothing about the man in the bed in front of her looked like her father.

His eyes were closed and held no hints of the light or laughter that constantly resided in those of David Lewis.

His hands were splayed out beside him, and when Darcy steeled herself to reach down and hold one of them, he didn’t squeeze her fingers the way David Lewis would have.  It didn’t even feel like his hand.

Darcy could taste bile in the back of her throat when she quietly excused herself and made her way back out to the hall.

She hated it.  Hated the man in the bed.  Hated the man who’d hit the man in the bed.  Hated the doctors standing around the man in the bed, with their morose expressions and the way that, whenever they turned their eyes on her, it was like they were trying to feel sad _for_ her, like she wasn’t capable of feeling sad enough already.

She hated herself for leaving her mother and Charlie in that room with them, with the doctors and their sad eyes and that man who was not her father in the bed.

They would be alright, though, with the sad-eyed doctors who knew what they were doing, and with Steve and Bucky, who were good about keeping people calm in shitty situations.

Shitty situation.  That was one way of putting it.

Her brain was doing that stupid thing again.  Flitting around from stupid, cynical idea to stupid, cynical idea without much depth or rationalization.  And when she did that, she was liable to let herself get carried away. Though she ought to have been allowed to get carried away.  What with her dad getting hit by some college student texting in the fast lane. That was forgivable, being upset, and irrational, and confused when something life-changing was happening.  Potentially life-changing. Provided her dad was going to be okay.

The hospital cafeteria was no longer cooking food, but the sparse patients and visitors there that time of night had free reign on the sitting area.  Darcy found a spot far away from the young father bouncing a toddler on his knee while he spooned from the pudding pack into each of their mouths. She had to slow her mind down, make a list, make something that made sense.  To make sense out of something.

She scrambled through her purse for her planner, and in the blank space next to tomorrow’s date - she couldn’t bear looking at today, couldn’t bear knowing that today was Christmas and this was where they were - began to plot out bullet points.

  * **Cancel flight**


  * **Call work**


  * **Call Jane**


  * **Find a place for Shady to stay**


  * **Talk finance with Mom and Charlie**


  * **If needed, set up GoFundMe?**



Darcy scratched the last one out until the pen tore through the paper.  There were other things she could do - pick up extra hours as soon as she got home, sell stuff on Craigslist, find odd jobs on the weekends - _if_ they needed it.  She had to remind herself that, _if_ .  Plans that hinged on _if_ could quickly be rectified.

 _If_ they needed the money.

 _If_ her dad made it.

She shook her head the way a dog shakes water out of its ears.  Thinking like that would send her back into the rabbit hole. She didn’t need that.  She didn’t.

“Hey,” said a familiar voice, and when a big someone eased into the booth cushion beside her, she didn’t have to look up to see that it was Steve.  He rested a hand on her knee and let her lean into him once the pen clattered from her hand and onto the floor.

She sat there with him a long time, neither of them saying anything.  She knew that Sam and Bucky, bless them, were still up in the hospital room with her family.

 _Her_ family.

A harsh flood of shame burst through the dam in her chest, and hot, angry tears began to roll down her cheeks.

“Fuck,” Darcy whispered, and crushed the heels of her hands into the dips beneath her eyes.  “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

“Darcy - ”

“No.”  She sucked in a wet, shaky breath and then looked up at him with eyes that didn’t belong to her.  He pulled his arm out from around her, a thick line forming between his brows. “Steve, I really want to be alone right now.”

“Honey…”

She knew better than to let the following words come spilling out of her mouth with all the weight and taste of bile, but she did it anyway.  Because, for some reason she couldn’t even explain to herself, she wanted it to _hurt_.

“Fuck, I don’t want you here, okay?”  The blood was rushing to her ears, and it was hot and loud with the pounding of her heart almost silencing what was coming out of her lips.  “You’ve done a fine enough job being there for my dad the last ten years, so why don’t you go be with him? Keep filling the goddamn gap I left to make up for the one you did.”

Steve’s face had drained of color, but he was silent.  Darcy could see a muscle twitch in his jaw, and though he wore a stony expression, there was no doubt in her mind she’d not merely touched a nerve, but stepped on one.

After a long pause, he slid out from beside her and stood with his hands shoved into his pockets, the look on his face unchanged.  He inhaled deeply, and folded his arms over his chest. When he spoke again, each word felt carefully measured.

“You really want to do this now.”  

It wasn’t a question.  She would have let it go after her little outburst, but Darcy didn’t like the way he’d stood before responding, didn’t like the way that he physically had to take the high ground when he spoke to her.  She pushed herself out of the booth and took an equally measured step toward him, matching his stance with her arms crossed in front of her.

“Go on,” she said, biting down hard on each syllable.  “Say what you have to say.”

Steve ground his teeth, the color leaving him.  The pause was heavy in the air between them. “I think...you are being a _little..._ unfair to me.”

“Unfair.”  The edges of her teeth dug into her lower lip.  They didn’t stop until she tasted blood. “Unfair was when you dipped out for, what, seven years and then expected...everything to come back to where it was before you left.”

“You are throwing this at me about a decision I made when I was _eighteen_ .  The decision to serve my _country_.”

“You _chose_ to do another tour.  Then you _chose_ to come back and be - ”  She swallowed hard. It was too late to take any of it back.  Too late not to press forward. “You chose to come back, fill in spots you weren’t asked to.”

He opened his mouth to reply, angrily, from the looks of it, but she wasn’t done.

“No.  You chose to love me that day.  You chose to give me the _best_ day of my entire goddamn life, and then you followed it up...by leaving.  You _left_ .  You _left me_ .  No goodbye, not even a note...you were my best friend and you _left_ like that?”

“I’m not eighteen anymore, Darcy.  And neither are you.”

He was calling her childish.  Something bitter and poisonous thrummed against her insides.

“Funny, how when I ask to be alone, all you want to do is stand here, all steadfast soldier, and when the _last_ thing I want is to be alone, you leave for seven years.  Huh.” She folded her arms over her chest. “Go. Go be a part of my family.  Go fill in the big gaping hole I left when, God forbid, _I’m_ the one who wants to branch out and do my own thing.”

The lines in his face had faded, and the anger slowly left his expression altogether.  Darcy felt her gut twist with embarrassment and disappointment - the first at how hard she was snapping on him, but the second at how reluctant he was to fight back.

And then he opened his mouth a final time, giving her none of the satisfaction she’d hoped for in fighting him like this.

“Okay.”

She half-expected him to say more, fixing her gaze on the floor in front of her, but the almost offensively comedic squeal of his sneakers on the linoleum moving away from her said otherwise.

The dining area was empty.  The young father had, sometime during their fight, taken his toddler and made their way back to whoever they were visiting.  The time on Darcy’s watch read 3:42. She could feel the dark circles forming beneath her eyes, the sleep prickling at the back of her skull, but she toed the fallen pen out from under the table and let it rest idly in her hand, no more thoughts ready to spill out across the page in front of her.

It was late, and she couldn’t sleep, and she was certain that even Jane would be laid up in bed by now, but there was nothing else Darcy could think to do.

_-Hey.  Merry Christmas.  Text me when you get this; have slight emergency._

She’d just rested her forehead into the crook of her elbow when her phone buzzed loud against the tabletop.

- _Merry xmas!  Whats going on?_

Darcy forced herself to inhale and exhale deeply at least three times before she got up the fortitude to text back.

- _Would I be a terrible friend to ask you and/or Thor to stay at my place a little bit longer?  Dad was in an accident, may need to stay in PL a few more days_.

The sound of her phone ringing so abruptly, so shrill in the empty cafeteria, made her jump.  Jane’s voice on the other end was wide awake, cutting in nearly frantic before Darcy could even get out a “hey.”

“What happened?  Is your dad okay?  Are you okay?”

“Hey,” she choked, pressing her palm hard into her cheek.  “Um...truck driver fell asleep at the wheel. I guess he...shifted into Dad’s lane, Dad spun out…”  She sucked in another deep breath, the air thick on her lips with the tears that were sneaking from her eyes down to her teeth.  “Mom and Charlie and Sarah...and the boys are up in the room with him.” A heavy lump rolled down her throat. “And I just fucking screamed at Steve because I don’t know how to accept - ”  She gasped in shallowly, hating herself. “ - I don’t know how to…”

“Darcy, Darcy, Darcy, Darcy - ” Jane cut her off, a soft lull to her voice that had drifted in to ease away the panic.  “Hey. Listen to me. Tell me that this feeling is temporary.”

“This feeling is temporary,” she repeated.  Another inhale, another exhale. She pressed both palms into the table, then balled her hands into fists, letting herself relish the feeling of her fingernails in the heels of her hands before releasing.  “Okay. Okay. I’m okay. I’m okay.”

“Okay?”  There was a pause on the other end of the line.  “Thor’s with me right now, okay? And he says he’ll stay here as long as you need him to.  Would it be alright if I came to see you?”

Tears welled in her eyes.  She had no right to ask Jane to come halfway across the country to nurse her broken heart.  And yet, right about now, that was pretty much all she wanted.

“I’ll comp you for plane tickets.”  Her voice came out pathetically wet and broken.  She wanted to laugh at how ridiculous she must have sounded.

On the other end of the line, Jane made a noise not unlike a snort, then said nothing, a few clicks tapping over the phone to indicate that she was typing.  “I’ll see you around four in the afternoon.” She paused, and Darcy could almost hear the gears turning in her head. “I know it’s a tall order right now, but please, _please_ try to get some sleep.  Okay?”

Darcy pressed her fingers into the bridge of her nose, massaging gently before she answered.  “Okay. I love you.”

“Love you, too.  See you later.”

She allowed herself a few more minutes of wallowing in the cafeteria before making her way to the elevator on the far end of the corridor, not entirely sure she was ready to face what lay before her.

Mom had her arm around Sarah, and the two of them sat with their heads pressed together, looking not entirely awake but far from asleep, eyes glazed and directed at the hospital bed.  Steve and Charlie, likewise, had taken on the same stance, arms folded over their chests and watching Dad with deep creases in their brows. Sam and Bucky stood outside, Bucky tucking himself into Sam’s chest and Sam running a comforting hand up and down his boyfriend’s back.

Darcy squeezed into the tiny room, so full with people and monitors and beeping and the rush of air forced in and out of her father’s lungs.  Despite her best efforts to make herself small in the chair closest to the bed, she caught Steve’s eyes flickering towards her once before turning to his own mother.

“Ma.”  Sarah stirred, a few tendrils of her still mostly rust-red hair falling down her forehead.  “Let me drive you home.” When she looked about ready to protest, Steve shook his head. “C’mon.  Let’s give them some time.”

“I’m a phone call and a stone’s throw away,” Sarah said to Mom, and pressed the tenderest kiss to the top of her head.  “Oi. He’ll pull through, understand? You lot’re a tough buncha bastards. You’ll all pull through.” On her way out, she pulled Charlie into her arms, and then Darcy.  Even now, even here, the woman smelled of cinnamon and cloves - sharp, strong, unmistakable. Undeniably Sarah Rogers.

Steve squeezed each Mom and Charlie by the shoulder, and, as though thinking better of it with her, offered Darcy one sympathetic look, curtained by the solemn set of his lips, before walking out the door.  Sam and Bucky, catching the hint, waved quietly and made their exit shortly after.

“Oh, Daddy,” Darcy said finally, to cut through the ugly silence between each wheezing hospital sound, and tried again to slide her hand into his.  His skin was still warm, the pads of his palms as calloused as they’d been that morning, when he’d taken her to the creek, but no matter how many times she tried to look at him and see the man who’d woken her up at the asscrack of dawn, the man who made pot roast every week and played catch with her long after she’d left her baseball mitt behind for an iPod and teen magazines, she couldn’t.

The last thing she heard, pressing her forehead to the bare space on the bed next to her dad, was Charlie saying something about getting some sleep.

* * *

 

The clock read 11:06 when her phone sprung to life, Sarah’s name blazing bright across the screen.  Darcy looked around groggily, noting that everyone else in the room hadn’t woken, and stepped outside to take the call.

Sarah was apologetic but the tiniest bit frantic, her Irish lilt wrapping around each word too quickly for her tongue to catch up.  When Darcy finally got her to calm down, she explained the situation simply: she’d scheduled a consultation with a customer today, someone who didn’t have much experience with botany, and had forgotten that it was Christmas and she was already on her way to pick her sister up at the airport.  She’d tried getting a hold of Steve to run down to the shop to track down the customer’s phone number, but he wasn’t picking up his phone - nor were Sam and Bucky. If Darcy could pretty please just give Steve a call (“he might answer to you, he might just be asleep, the hell if I know what that boy gets up to these days”) to get in touch with that customer and reschedule, she’d be terribly grateful.

“Sarah,” Darcy sighed, mustering up a smile for the nurse who passed by her.  “If he’s not answering you, he won’t answer me. You said the appointment book is in the shop, on your desk?”

“It is, love, but only Steve and I’ve got the key to get in - ”

“What time is the person supposed to get there?”

“‘Leven-thirty.  And as you can see, I’m a bit up shit’s creek with this - ”

“They might realize it’s Christmas?  Might not come, or maybe they tried to call you on the shop phone to reschedule?”  She inhaled, rubbing some of the sleep out of her eyes. Her clothes felt sticky, and she wished she could rub the sleep out of them as well.  “Why don’t I just run down, see if I can meet the customer on their way in? I’ll text you their number, so you can get back to them directly.”

“I can’t ask you to do that, Darcy, ya ought to be with your dad about now.”

“He’s still asleep.”  She peeked back into the room, Charlie asleep with his head in Mom’s lap, Mom leaning back in her seat.  “They’ll be okay if I slip out for a little bit. I need to stretch my legs anyway, maybe stop for a coffee at McDonald’s on my way back.”  She paused a moment. On the other end, she could nearly hear Sarah exhale with relief. “I really appreciate everything you’ve done for us, Sarah.  This is the least I can do for you.”

“You’re an angel, Darcy Lewis.  I’ll getcha back one of these days.”

Fortunately, Rosanna was only a fifteen-ish minutes’ walk from the hospital, so by the time Darcy made it to the front door, eleven-thirty hadn’t yet come to pass.  It being Christmas, there weren’t many people on the street, so she had some time to herself to sit on the step in front of the shop and just have a look at everything around her.  Everything that was the same since she’d last been there, and everything that had changed. Coffee shops with names that had changed like shoes. The old dime store, turned into a vape shop, turned into a smoothie bar.  The movie theater that had burned down when she was a toddler, and then erected again into a theater-theater, where she’d seen a play in middle school written by some guy who’d moved into town from New York.

“Is that Darcy Lewis?”  For the second time that week, Darcy watched in astonishment as Mrs. Edwards from high school called her name.  This time, though, she was walking toward the shop with a platter much too large for her small frame tucked under her arm.  The older woman smiled, the jewels on the rims of her glasses twinkling in the groggy winter sun. “We have to stop meeting like this.”

“Mrs. Edwards.”  It made sense now; Steve had said Mrs. Edwards was just starting out with her gardening, so it would stand to reason that she’d ask for a consultation after just purchasing a few new plants.  “I, uh - Sarah Rogers asked me to let you know she’s so sorry, she forgot she’d be out of the office today and - ”

“Oh, yes,” nodded Mrs. Edwards, pulling the platter out from under her arm.  “I’d forgotten we’d scheduled for Christmas, but I just...well, I thought if anyone was around I might bring by the extra batch my daughter made.”  Darcy eyed the pile of sugar cookies, all shaped like sweaters and frosted to look like them. They were almost too cheery for her taste, but she couldn’t help melting a little at the thought of it all.  “Forgive me for saying so, but - you look awfully tired, dear.”

There was no point in denying it; Point Lusa was a small town, and she was almost surprised Mrs. Edwards hadn’t heard yet.  “I, um...my dad was in a car accident last night. We’ve been in the hospital since early this morning...Sarah couldn’t get a hold of Steve to get the appointment book to give you a call, so I...I needed a walk.”

“Oh, dear.”  The older woman sighed, and set down the platter on the step Darcy’d previously been occupying.  “I’m so sorry to hear about your father…”

“He’s stable,” she insisted, almost too quickly.  “Just...playing the waiting game. I guess.”

Mrs. Edwards frowned.  “I don’t mean to make your father’s accident small, Darcy, but...it feels like there’s something else.  Not bigger by any means, but...you seem like you’re living with... _more_ than that.”

It took her a long moment to process what this woman had said, this woman who’d only known her over a decade ago and only for a year or two.  It took a long time to process what she’d said, but when the weight of those words hit her fully, they hit hard.

And when Darcy took a shaky inhale, the exhale that followed spilled so much more than air.

She told Mrs. Edwards everything.  The anxieties over her relationship with Steve, the morning with her dad, the fact that she had to put her job, which she didn’t love in the first place, on hold to deal with the unexpected madness, and of course, the fear of losing him.  The fear of losing her dad, and the fear of losing her family, being so far away. The fear of losing Steve, because she’d lost him once before, and had promised herself she’d never want to feel that way again.

“I don’t know what to do,” she heard herself choke out, and then felt the water rolling down her face.  She made to scrub it away with the heel of her hand, but Mrs. Edwards reached out then, catching her by the sleeve.  “I don’t know how to go forward from here. How to feel... _full_.”

Mrs. Edwards sighed, and for a long moment, said nothing, only running her thin fingertips over the back of Darcy’s hand.  The latter let her tears fall, let herself come unraveled if only for a moment. And then, Mrs. Edwards said, “I haven’t got a fix for you, dear.  There’s no...easy solution for issues like these.” She glanced sadly down at the forgotten platter of cookies. “Darcy, what does home mean for you?”

Darcy didn’t attempt to even pretend like she understood.  “What?”

“What is home for you?  Or, I suppose, when do you feel most at home?”

It took a moment for her to figure out what exactly she felt about that question.  Home was too much to describe with words; it was pot roast and brussels sprouts with Charlie.   It was popcorn on the couch with Jane, Shady’s head in her lap and a cheesy baking show on Netflix.  It was Christmas Eve fishing with Dad. Late night drives home with Mom. Playing NASCAR on the PlayStation with Bucky.  It was the way Steve smelled like cool mint and musk, the way she fit in his arms like she was meant to live and die there, the way that he could make her laugh until she cried in one breath and make her heart swell a size or two in the next.

“I’m at home when...I have no doubt in the world I’m safe with the people around me.  I’m at home when...when I know I’m loved, because no one around me will let me forget it.”

A small smile rose to Mrs. Edward’s lips.  “You know, now that I’m officially retired...the academy could really use another great U.S. History teacher.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Suuuuuuper sorry for the delay on this, guys, but I hope y'all enjoy! Let me know what you think; I'm thinking I need another two chapters to cover all the things swirling in my brain.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for checking this out! I've been working really hard on it the last month or so, and I'm totally indebted to Kacey Musgraves for the inspiration on this one.
> 
> Massive kudos to CatrinaSL for chapter titling assistance!


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